


What's Behind and What's Before

by KaavyaWriting



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, BAMF Bilbo Baggins, Fix-It, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, PTSD, Thorin is so done with him, Time Travel Fix-It, mentions of disturbing imagery, occasional language, where Bilbo remembers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-05-08 10:26:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 32,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5493863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaavyaWriting/pseuds/KaavyaWriting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bilbo remembers the span of his life from the very start of it, unspooling before him like an impossible thread unraveling the stitches of his best waistcoat. He's fairly sure he isn't mad, most days, but that doesn't mean he knows what to do with this unexpected treasure. Will he be able to change the lives that matter most? Will it be for the better? Would it be the worst thing, to keep something in this second chance for himself?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this is an idea I had awhile back, and it's slowly evolved over the months. I only have the barest of ideas what will happen--beyond it having a happy ending, because honestly I know myself, and really you just can't beat canon for angst, am I right? _Anyway_ , this is something I'm tinkering with between working on 'i'm killing time,' I've no idea where it's going or even if I'll finish it, though that is my goal. I wanted to share it now, simply because I love the idea of it, and hope you do as well. Enjoy!

When Bilbo Baggins was born to his parents, he remembered them. Bungo and Belladonna Baggins, blond and brunette respectively, one with blue eyes, the other brown, and both with deep laugh lines marking their long romance.

That wasn't to say Bilbo was an especially remarkable baby. He was no more brilliant or magical than the next Hobbit child, and he didn't understand the memories floating in his head. But Bilbo remembered his parents because he'd been their son already, grown up under their love and care like a flower sprouting beneath the sun, and he had wept at their early deaths, and had missed them all his days after.

Bilbo remembered others too. Dwarves and little fauntling cousins. Elves and a meddlesome wizard. There were faces and names and events that all had meaning an infant's mind could not parse. He had knowledge of languages and skills a baby could not employ. And because he was a baby, Bilbo would not understand what remarkable things filled his mind until he was much, much older.

~*~

Bilbo was two when he began spouting nonsense words, the most frequent of them being _Frodo_ and _Thorin_ , and he grew not a little frustrated when the names did not produce the appropriate response, which would have been, had anyone heeded him, the arrival of the faces he saw so clearly in his mind. But his parents did not understand who or what a Frodo or a Thorin was, and Bilbo was still young enough that he didn't understand that they were not people yet in his life.

When he reached three, he was stringing sentences together like, 'Thorin is a Dwarf, Mum' and 'Frodo is my nephew,' which worried his parents no small amount.

Of course, Bilbo didn't have any nephews, being an only child, and a very young one besides, and he certainly could know no Dwarves. How Bilbo had even come to know such a word as 'Dwarf' stymied them for some time, until Bungo decided Belladonna must have told him stories of that secretive race. Belladonna knew better. The only stories she had told Bilbo spoke of Elves and wizards, being more or less stories of her own adventures. Belladonna thought him too young to hear here favorite stories of the Dwarf and Goblin wars.

As Bilbo grew up and learned to understand what time was, and what everything inside his head was—memories that hadn't happened, times of when he was older, of all things—he began realizing the people he dreamt of, remembered, and knew as deeply as his own bones all weren't the least bit part of his life, nor would they be for some years.

It was a frustrating matter that led to tears more often than not, especially as he grew older and could express himself more eloquently every day, far more so than any three- or four-year-old. As he understood more of his own mind, he more and more failed to understand others. After all, if dozens of more words sprouted in his mind every day than the handful he learned around him, why didn't others learn words this way too? If he knew who Thorin was, and Dwalin and Bofur and Gandalf, why did no one else remember them too? (When he was a little older, he would wonder, why didn't everyone else have memories of their lives spiraling out before them like an endless ribbon of smoke?)

Bilbo slowly learned to hold this knowledge in himself, and he grew quiet about things he knew must be real, but no one else understood. And if Bilbo caught his parents watching him with worried eyes, well… He knew that they knew that he still remembered impossible things; of course they did, they were his parents, and they saw him far better than most ever did in his long life. They said nothing of it, asked no questions, so Bilbo said nothing either.

The seasons turned, and Bilbo was eight and the spring was wet and colorful and more bountiful than it had been in years, and Bilbo knew it would not last.

His eighth year was the year of the Fell Winter.

He tried to explain to his parents, but they didn't understand how a fell winter could be. They thought it impossible, a child's fancy, and for the first time Bilbo regretted holding his silence on the memories that bubbled and brewed in his head, images and thoughts that slowly came together into things he could understand. Because there hadn't been such a thing as a fell winter for decades, and no harsh winter had led to wolves and orcs since before Bullroarer Took rode his horse across the fields of the Shire. Bilbo's parents did not believe him.

When he asked his mum to not cook so much food in a meal, she swatted him away to his books and toys. When he told his father to shore up their pantries—expanding three into four—he was exasperatedly told this was the largest growth of fruit their fields had ever had. The stores would be fine well through winter, and no doubt into next harvest.

It was difficult for an eight-year-old to convince adults a terrible, dark time was coming, and by and large no one would listen.

But Bilbo was clever, and as it happened, he had always been one of Gerontius Took's favorite grandchildren in his old life—a life he understood better every day, one he realized he was reliving, and that was no small, disconcerting matter—and that fact remained true of this one. Gerontius had a soft spot for his youngest daughter's only son.

On a later summer visit to Tuckborough—a visit that was already growing too late in the year for Bilbo's peace of mind, when he knew how early the frost would come—Gerontius pulled Bilbo up onto his knee, no matter that Gerontius was already well into his elder years, and Bilbo was already eight, getting a trifle old for such behaviors. (Never mind Bilbo had more than a few memories of hauling Frodo into his arms well into is teens, much to the lad's amusement. And Bilbo had held Frodo again, after the end of all things, in Rivendell, and on a ship of silver and light.)

Bilbo called him 'Gerontius' instead of 'grandda'—as he'd always done through one life and now another—and the Thain was charmed by Bilbo's propriety, as he always was, and he gave Bilbo an amused, indulgent smile, and ran his fingers through Bilbo's curls, and asked him why he looked as if the world were ending.

Bilbo said because it was, of course.

To his mind, it might as well have been. The Shire was his world.

Gerontius, bless him, was one of the adults who found Bilbo's odd behavior more of a curiosity than a concern. Not that many understood how unusual Bilbo was, because he was as yet too young to try to explain it to anyone, the things he remembered, and when he had spoken of them, he'd been quick to learn it was unwise. He didn't truly understand what it all could mean, anyway, only that he'd done this all before, and he was old at the same time he was young, and he knew things and people that no one else knew.

Bilbo did his best to explain the coming Fell Winter to Gerontius, who clearly did not believe him any more than his parents had. But when Bilbo told him they had to protect what harvest they could against an early frost, and store more food as best they could, and guard the Shire when the river froze over, and even call in aid from the Elves or rangers if they could… Well, Gerontius had given him a very curious look. Eight-year-olds weren't supposed to concern themselves with food stores, or even know what those were. And certainly no eight-year-old was to know there were rangers guarding the Shire's borders, or that the Last Homely House was only a few weeks' travel east.

Gerontius said quite simply that the Shire did not have poor winters. The Shire was a prosperous and blessed land—but if it would comfort Bilbo, he would ensure extra stores were put aside, and give word to the other families.

Bilbo had politely told him not to patronize him.

Gerontius laughed, and gave his solemn word.

Everyone knew Gerontius's solemn word was as good as a done thing, so Bilbo nodded gravely in acceptance, then flung his arms around his grandfather and hugged him tight.

~*~

The winter was terrible, and was still called the Fell Winter by the Shire's reckoning.

…but it was not so bad as Bilbo remembered it. He and many others did not slowly starve so direly in their homes for months on end. And when the wolves howled on the wind and there were the distant screeches of opportunistic orcs, there also came the distant battle cries of Men and Hobbit Bounders.

Perhaps Gerontius had taken Bilbo's warnings more to heart than he'd claimed. Or maybe he'd absently mentioned Bilbo's fears in one of his many letters to the Big Folk the Shire did business with. Bilbo didn't know, and he didn't care. He was only happy he'd made any difference at all.

Bilbo hadn't been sure he could make a difference, until then. Many of the Hobbits who had died in the first Fell Winter survived this one, and Bilbo counted it a success.

The following spring, his parents eyed him with fresh concern and the littlest bit of awe, which lasted until Bilbo got caught collecting frogs and putting them in Daffodil Fernwell's room down the lane, through her conveniently open window.

Gerontius visited specially to speak with him, to ask how he'd known. Gerontius was being hailed a hero of the Shire and a prophet besides, warning the Shire as he had of the Fell Winter when all the portents had promised a kind one. Bilbo said he couldn't explain, even though his memories grew stronger every day. For now, he knew he couldn't. He didn't have the words, and more often than not the memories wouldn't stay straight in his head. There were too many of them, of a life he'd lived, but hadn't yet. Of a very old Hobbit remembering children and Dwarves, loss and grief, healing and a slow, winding life, and a plain gold ring.

Besides that, he'd only just got his parents to see him as their son again, instead of some strange thing.

But the Fell Winter taught Bilbo one thing he would never forget. His memories didn't have to be true.

He could change what happened.


	2. Chapter 2

Bilbo was twenty-three. If asked—no one ever did—he would say he felt over six times his age. Living one's life with said life's sum knowledge already in one's head would do that to any Hobbit, surely. And Bilbo, contrary to all his father's… "advice," was going on an adventure.

He folded two spare sensible shirts into his sturdy leather pack, mind whirling with more plans than he could properly keep track of. Which reminded him…

He pulled out his small travel desk and set it beside his pack. The desk was a lightweight wood, hollow on the inside for storage, with a waterproof sealant; it would be easy to travel with, and unspeakably useful besides. He remembered Ori had had something like it in the start of the quest, until they'd lost most of their belongings in Goblintown. Bilbo's desk already had quills, inks and spare papers carried safely within it, though his notes would be safely tucked into his vest when he left in the morning. Ori had lost all his writing and sketches in the Misty Mountains, so very long ago, and had to painstakingly rewrite them, fretting over all he'd forgotten in between. Bilbo was thankful his friend could remind him to take care even through these long, invisible years.

His mum cleared her throat behind him, and Bilbo glanced back to find her leaning against his bedroom door, a few dark curls falling loosely around her face from where they'd escaped the pins holding it back.

"Your father will lock you in your room before he lets you go on an adventure," she warned, sounding more amused than concerned.

"You went on tons of adventures," Bilbo pointed out, the littlest bit plaintively. "And—"

"And you're not so young as you look, all things considered," she finished for him. "Yes, yes, we know. You're still our son, and you always will be."

Bilbo couldn't help his grateful, happy smile, warmth uncurling in his belly. He had told very few about his memories over the years, but his parents… well. He'd tried to tell them when he was little, and they knew from that moment on that there was something odd about him. It was inevitable that he would try to explain again. And again. And again. It understandably took them a long time to grasp it, and then believe it, and then _understand_ it. Who could grasp as easy as that why Bilbo sometimes had terrible days, after all? Days where he missed Frodo so deeply in his bones all he could do was sit, and smoke, and grieve for something he would never have.

Or that sometimes he was so full of memory, of inspiration, that he could do nothing but lock himself in Bungo's study, as he had done when it had been Bilbo's own study, and write from dawn to dusk, too caught in his wanderings to pause for meals. On those days, Bilbo had often written of the Quest, of Thorin's Company, and his heart ached with such loss as if he'd lost everyone afresh. Bungo took to doing the accounts in the living room on those days, and both Bilbo's parents would come in and leave tea and cakes at his elbow. Bilbo appreciated it, on the days he remembered to reach for his tea.

Sometimes, Bilbo felt old and frail, his skin a tight constriction around his spirit. On those days, his mind wandered as though it was no longer moored to Bilbo's body, and he would wonder where he'd misplaced his ring this time.

That cursed, damnable ring.

Bilbo would destroy that terrible ring, the one that his mind lingered on some days. Lingered too much, like an old illness that would not fade. He couldn't leave it for Frodo, not this time. He wouldn't even have Frodo this time. Bilbo had every intention to save Drogo and Primula, two fine Hobbits who deserved the chance to see their young son grow into the goodhearted lad he would become. He would make sure Frodo's parents lived past that one terrible accident that changed Frodo's life irrevocably.

So, of course it took time for Bilbo's parents to understand him. Sometimes Bilbo still did not even understand himself, even though he remembered his first life perfectly well now, which was why it was time for him to do something about it all.

Ultimately, Bilbo had tried to tell very few people about his memories, besides his parents—and Gerontius, who'd turned out to be pushy and keen-minded and determined enough for Bilbo to guess where his own stubbornness originated from. As for others… Bilbo had learned very quickly, at a very young age, that few would believe him. Most thought him mad.

Many in the Shire thought him mad without knowing about his double memories.

His smile to his mum turned rueful as he thought about it. 'Mad Baggins' wasn't something he would have tried to avoid this time around—whatever _this time_ was, exactly—because any Hobbit who adventured or made friends of Outsiders was bound to be considered mad, and Bilbo quite definitely planned to make friends of many Outsiders again. He simply hadn't expected to be dubbed Mad Baggins for a number of decades yet.

Belladonna stepped further into the room and wrapped him in a hug. "No regrets, my darling lad."

"That's a bit hard," he said into her shoulder, hugging her back for all he was worth. "I fear I am full of them, a lifetime's worth. But I will try."

"You know we support you, don't you?"

"I know."

"Your father is nonetheless having a fit in his study right now."

Bilbo giggled into her shoulder. "I know."

"He's not wrong, Bilbo." She pulled back, holding his shoulders and studying his face intently. "You're only twenty-three, a great many years off from majority yet. You're a bit young to run out of the Shire like there's a fire at your heels. Will you not tell us what is so urgent?"

"I can't." He caught her hands and squeezed them. "I will be back in only a few months, before winter sets in. But I must go fetch some things. And as I recall, you ran off adventuring at only twenty-one!"

Belladonna sniffed and arched her eyebrows imperiously. "I am a Took, it's expected of me. And I had a wizard with me. Had you one, I would feel a great deal more comfortable with this."

Bilbo's rueful smile came back. "So would I, for all that. And I am as much Took as Baggins, so those reasons don't work on me, Mum." He squeezed her hands again, leaned in quickly and kissed her on the cheek, and then turned back to his packing. "But I don't have a wizard, and I do have to go, and the quicker I do, the quicker I may return."

"If you return," Belladonna said, where she still stood behind him, exasperated as much as worried. If she had a kitchen towel, Bilbo had no doubt she'd flick him with it.

"I will," he said, as firmly as he could. He believed it. He had to. "There is much too much I wish to do in life to die so quickly."

He and his mum both ignored her quick inhalation at his blunt statement. "Well then, I've been putting together hardy meals to take with you. They'll all be ready for tomorrow. You are _not_ to go before second breakfast, Bilbo Baggins, or I'll chase after you myself." She paused in the doorway. "And go speak with your father before he drives me mad."

Bilbo laughed and agreed, all the while thinking of the little sword sitting in a troll hoard, waiting for him to come collect it, and a small ring riding in the rotted pocket of a pitiful creature, right under the noses of a town of goblins.

~*~

Bilbo didn't go to the Misty Mountains, as he'd planned, not even to the little pocket of it sitting on the edge of Goblin Town.

He didn't go very far at all, in fact.

Bilbo made it to the troll hoard, or where he was sure the troll hoard was supposed to be, but… it wasn't.

He spent three days combing the area until he decided to leave the woods to try and orient himself with the old route Thorin had chosen for the Company.

It led Bilbo to the little farmhouse, the one he hadn't thought of at all, because the last time he'd seen it, it'd been nothing but overgrown ruins.

It hadn't even occurred to him that that ruined place had once been a home, with a family. With _children_. But it was, and it had. Bilbo met them, all five of the Men living there, a married couple with three children, trying to farm a stray bit of land, to start a new life away from their old one.

Bilbo had lunch with them, and then dinner, and then he stayed the night. He didn't pry into why they'd chosen such an isolated life, as it was certainly not his business.

And he understood it suddenly, lying in bed that night, why he couldn't find the trolls. Why this family was here. The trolls hadn't come here yet, they were somewhere else, terrorizing some other corner of land.

The family living on this farm were good people, and he couldn't stop thinking that someday, who knew when, they would likely be killed by a wandering trio of smelly trolls.

The next morning Bilbo told them they should move closer to the Shire, where they could trade with his people, as well as the Bree-Men and perhaps the Dwarves of the Blue Mountains. But they only nodded at his offer with vague words and smiles that he understood to be polite nothings.

There wasn't much for Bilbo to do with that, so he bid them farewell, with a foggy notion to somehow keep an eye out for them over the years. He trekked into the woods to look for the caves and the hoard one last time, but was now certain the trolls weren't there. He was now certain he'd found exactly the right caves four days ago, when he'd first arrived. Those caves simply weren't occupied yet.

Bilbo camped in the caves and considered his options. If the trolls weren't there yet, would Gollum and the ring be where he expected them to be?

Bilbo had been positive that he would reclaim his sword on this trip. He'd been certain his memories were true. Now he wondered if he'd been mad all these years after all. After all, it was a mad notion, wasn't it? Living one's life twice over?

And even if his mind was sound, Bilbo had the sudden inkling that rewriting history would not be so easy. The Fell Winter, well… Bilbo hadn't set out into the wide world to change events years before they'd happened. He had been there, in the Shire, as the winter crept upon them, and he'd been able to give what little warning he could offer.

Simply put, Bilbo couldn't assume that the things he'd stumbled upon in his fifties would be in the same places in his twenties. Like the trolls. Where were the trolls? Where would Gollum be? He'd been a fool, he'd been a _Took_ as Gandalf would no doubt say, leaping before he'd properly looked.

Bilbo wanted _his_ sword, but at this point he would need any sword at all to face the Misty Mountains and the creatures there. If Gollum was even where Bilbo needed him to be. That terrible ring pressed on Bilbo's mind like a weight, but he could not face Gollum without a weapon, and he could not risk going if he was not sure he would achieve his goal. Such a careless act would certainly get him killed, and Bilbo had not been jesting when he'd told his mother he had too much to get done to die so soon.

The ring would have to wait, and Bilbo would have to hope it remained safe until then.

There was nothing for it then. It was time for Bilbo to return home, his trip an utter failure.


	3. Chapter 3

The very notion of madness kept Bilbo still and quiet in the Shire for nearly two years, which his father certainly did not object to.

The fact of the matter was, Bilbo had been wrong about the trolls. Or at least wrong for now. Wrong enough to miss them by decades. He had no solid, incontrovertible evidence he was sane, or that his memories were real, and he'd have to wait to find out either way.

But why would Bilbo live his life twice, after all? He'd never heard of such a thing before. It was plain, simple hubris to assume he'd been given such a gift, an opportunity, when as far as he knew, no one else ever had.

His mum suggested he research the matter in Rivendell, and he'd considered it, he _had_. Elrond had once been one of his dearest friends—he still was, to Bilbo's mind, even if Elrond did not remember their friendship himself—as well as many other Elves of Imladris, and their wisdom and knowledge could well unearth something Bilbo had no knowledge of himself. And Erebor—if Erebor was not currently occupied by a dragon, Bilbo could look into his quandary in their halls. If he recalled rightly, their libraries were well preserved. But Bilbo hadn't helped oust Smaug yet, and wasn't that a terrible irony?

If Bilbo were honest about it, he hesitated only because the thought of explaining his predicament to the Elves terrified the hair right off his toes. Explaining to _anyone_ made him downright uncomfortable. The only people who had ever listened long enough to believe him were his parents and Gerontius. Trying to explain to Elrond, to Gandalf, to anyone else, well, Bilbo was a perfect stranger to them. A peculiar Hobbit with even more peculiar habits—traveling unaccompanied outside the Shire! They would no doubt think him mad, and rightly so.

That didn't change the fact that Bilbo had a short list of people he probably ought to tell. Gandalf. Elrond. Thorin. Especially Thorin, to his mind. Still, he really didn't want to. It was enough of a mess when Bilbo only had himself to worry about, let alone anyone else.

His grasp on his previous life was… Well, tenuous wasn't quite the right word. He had a firm memory of many things, only faded at the edges from time and age; he remembered quite well, all things considered. But if Bilbo was the only one who knew about it, he was also the only one effecting specific changes. If he told others, what else could change? It was an alarming concept, an impossible weight to bear. If his memories were true, he wasn't at all sure he wanted to trust any one person with the burden of his knowledge. What if they didn't care about his friends and their fates the way he did? Or what if they cared too much, enough to keep Bilbo from changing any particular thing?

But… how could Bilbo keep such knowledge to himself? It was the height of arrogance, wasn't it? But if this life was real, if his memories were real, and he was not mad… Hadn't he been given this knowledge for a reason? Did that not mean it was on his shoulders, and no one else's?

Elrond, at least, would be able to prove Bilbo's sanity, one way or the other.

So Bilbo's thoughts went, chasing each other around and around in circles in his head, week after week after month.

Bilbo sighed and rubbed his face, turning away from the notes in his latest journal. Pages and pages covered with ink to within an inch of the journal's leather-bound life, and he had more journals besides, all full of notes, memories and speculation. Plans and consequences. All of it written in a shorthand he'd developed himself, in his first life, when writing his book. It was something Bilbo doubted anyone else would be able to decipher.

There were sketches in the journals as well, but even those no one would recognize unless they had seen the people or objects before. Bilbo sincerely doubted Dwarves or wizards would go rifling through his work any time soon. They would have to appear in the Shire and in his home to do so, and that alone seemed unlikely.

He closed the book with some finality.

For now, he would do nothing. Could do nothing.

He didn't even know if he was sane.

~*~

"You're not mad." Bungo settled beside him on the bench beside their back door, tamping Old Toby down into his pipe as he spoke. He lit a match with an easy flick of his fingers and put it to his pipe until the depths of the bowl glowed cherry red.

"Hm," was all Bilbo said in return, staring pensively out over the grove of trees down the hill behind their home.

His father rested his hand on Bilbo's knee, squeezing lightly. "I don't pretend to like it, not the least bit, but it's clear as day you've got Fate wrapped around you like twine holding up a bean pole."

Bilbo slanted him a look. "Now I know that wasn't a compliment."

Bungo snorted. "The twine's the only thing keeping that plant growing the way it's meant."

"I'm not a bean plant," Bilbo said, pulling his feet up on the bench to wrap his arms around his knees. "And I don't think I'm _meant_ for anything."

"I don't care to dabble in philosophy or the intent of the Valar, my boy, but you're no more meant for a quiet Baggins life any more than a hawk's meant to be a robin." When Bilbo groaned, Bungo reached over and patted his foot.

"I don't know what to do," Bilbo confessed, pressing his face into his knees rather than looking to his father. Bungo had always been strong, the bedrock of Bilbo's life. He'd always known what to do, in Bilbo's first life, all the way up to the day Belladonna died of a little cough. After that, Bungo had never had the answer, and Bilbo had watched helplessly as his father quickly followed his mother to an early grave, too heartbroken to do anything but. This time around, Bungo's knowledge was just as sure, just as mysterious to him, and Bilbo found himself leaning on that strength all over again, while in the back of his mind he wondered how to save them.

"You're still a bird," Bungo said, drawing Bilbo from his thoughts, "and still my son even if you were a fish, but that doesn't mean you should live as a robin does." Then Bilbo heard the soft inhale and the crackling burn of weed as his father puffed his pipe.

"You speak like a wizard does," he complained, still to his knees.

"No need to be insulting."

Bilbo laughed, and if it was a touch watery his father didn't comment on it. "What do I do?"

"Accept you're not mad as those old gossips down in the pub claim you are," his father said. "It's damn daft to accept gossip as the truth, as you should well know by now."

"I do know," Bilbo said, and sighed, pulling his head up, propping his chin on his knee instead. "So I'm sane. That still means I've years of waiting ahead of me."

"Now why's that again?" Bungo asked, though Bilbo had never explained in great detail the events of his first life. He puffed peaceably on his pipe as Bilbo scowled at him.

"Because nothing happens until I'm well into middle-age, is why," he said, and hoped he didn't sound half so plaintive to his father's ears as he did to his own.

"What's that got to do with anything?" Bungo snorted.

Bilbo growled in frustration. "Because nothing's… nothing's _there_ yet. Only I am!"

His father considered the view down their hill as if it held the secrets to life itself, and then blew an easy smoke ring out into the air. "So do something with yourself."

"But—"

"Now with birds and plants, and all most creatures in the world, they've got life pretty easy, don't you think? A hawk's a hawk, and it knows it's a hawk from its hatching. Same with robins, with bean plants, with fish in the water, and oliphants of the East. It's only us talking, argumentative creatures that face problems trying to sort ourselves out."

"…Dad," Bilbo said, and from the way Bungo huffed a soft, smoky laugh, he knew his father knew perfectly well Bilbo didn't have the faintest idea what he was getting at. A good hundred and fifty years under his belt, and he still didn't understand his father.

"So you're a hawk, but you're born a robin, going back to our original metaphor."

"Alright," Bilbo said agreeably, if hesitantly, purposely not reminding his father the original metaphor had been bean poles, since the teasing would cause more trouble than it was worth.

"Then you'd best teach yourself how to _be_ a hawk. If you can't go fixing the world or whatever it is you wish to do, prepare yourself for the future. Before you went on your adventure two years back, you took on training as a Bounder, and I recall your mother and I had to come drag you away from the Bounds when your three months of duty was done."

Bilbo winced at how close his father was to the truth of his goals. "And I've not gone at all in the last two years," he surmised, before admitting, "I am probably rusty."

"You've been moping around, thinking yourself touched in the head," Bungo said knowingly. He rested his hand on Bilbo's shoulder, catching his eye. "It's been nice having you here the last couple years, my lad. I thought that was all I wanted in the world: you at home, given the chance to see our lives and maybe settle into one yourself, right here where you belong—where I wanted you to belong."

"I know," Bilbo began.

"I'm not finished," Bungo reproached. "This isn't the life for you. It never has been, and I can see that plain as day, have seen it for years. Even without those memories eating at you, I don't think this would have been the life for you, though maybe it would have fit a little better."

"You're… I still don't know what you're getting at," Bilbo said, but shock and an overwhelming sense of gratitude were welling up in his heart. All his first life, living up to his father's expectations—of being a Baggins, of being happy in a settled, gentlehobbit's life—had been a dream and an impossibility, something Bilbo had wanted to achieve and still never felt quite satisfied with.

Bungo puffed on his pipe for a few silent minutes, seeming to let Bilbo gather himself. Or perhaps gathering his own emotions together; Bilbo caught a distinct shine to Bungo's blue eyes when he glanced at him.

"There's nothing for you at the Bounds, Bilbo," Bungo said after awhile, diligently studying the view outside their smial once more. "If you go there, you'll find no more answers than you've found here. You have to go somewhere the sun can find you, or some plant metaphor tosh."

"Plant metaphor tosh," Bilbo repeated.

Bungo slanted him a look. "You try to keep the metaphors rolling in a conversation and see how quickly they start falling to pieces."

Bilbo laughed, Bungo joining in a second later. When he caught his breath all he said was, "You mean you're kicking me out." It was a startling notion. In his first life it's something his father would never have done. Just the opposite, in fact, for Bungo would have tried to keep Bilbo home and grounded for all he was worth. "You could have just said so."

"Now you and I both know that wouldn't have made a drop of sense," Bungo reproached. "It would've been starting the story at the ending." When Bilbo hummed in acknowledgment, Bungo added, "You need answers. You're going to go find some."

"I don't think I'm ready to go to Rivendell," Bilbo admitted.

"Did I say go to Rivendell? If not there, somewhere else. Somewhere you'll convince yourself you're healthy. Somewhere you can learn whatever it is you need."

Bilbo blinked, and stared blankly down at the dirt between his feet. He didn't notice when his father tapped out his pipe and went back inside, he was so lost in his thoughts.

Somewhere he could learn what he needed. Maybe he could do that.


	4. Chapter 4

The truth about travel that Bilbo always forgot until he was well in the middle of things was that, to put it bluntly, it was awful.

Traveling was an awful, uncomfortable, ceaseless irritation.

Oh, the sights were pretty enough, and Bilbo would be the first to admit he enjoyed fishing and sleeping beneath the stars and meeting agreeable strangers.

It was the lack of a well stocked pack, the rocks beneath his bedroll, the rain, and the disagreeable strangers that Bilbo didn't like. Unfortunately, those parts were always more prevalent than the other bits.

Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending whether one was looking from behind or before—Bilbo only ever remembered the enjoyable bits in his nostalgia, and they always lured him back out his door.

It was a relief, then, that he was only days away from his destination. Finally. And he'd come upon a ramshackle inn to spend his night, which suited him well since he could see plain as anyone the dark thunderclouds rolling down from the Blue Mountains. It made the mountains look particularly formidable despite the fact he was more or less already in the middle of them, following the road toward the Longbeards' settlements—one in particular.

"Typical welcome, that," Bilbo muttered to himself, eying the clouds—some miles off yet, thankfully—and the misty sheets of rain he could just see coming down from them. He stepped a bit quicker toward the inn, ignoring the handful of curious looks he garnered from the small settlement's occupants.

The town was built in the fashion of Men, though entirely occupied by Dwarves. Bilbo could not recall its name, even if Dwalin had told him once whilst explaining it was the Khuzdul word for "way-stop," and he was fairly sure he'd not been joking. All of it was built aboveground, in storied houses, though built to a lower degree than a Man's house. It was surrounded by stone-and-wood double walls and guards that looked more ruffian than they actually were—at least at this point in time, when Dwalin's men ran the guard.

The town _was_ a way-stop, a place for Dwarves to rest, restock, trade, rely on local law, and rearrange travel plans due to disruption—weather most often, and highwaymen the rest of the time. Supplies moving to and from the Blue Mountains often ran through this particular town; it was one of the few reliable roads through the mountains. Because of all that—and because, honestly, it was a town of _Dwarves_ —it was also a fortress. Dwarves took defense seriously, and Bilbo couldn't blame them for it. The world was growing darker, and his friends had lost enough.

Bilbo was not the least bit surprised he was earning odd looks. Dwarves were by and large the only ones who traveled so far into the mountains, except for the occasional trade caravan of Men. Bilbo was neither Dwarf nor Man, and he was alone. He was, in a word, odd. That wasn't going to stop him, of course. He had learned to settle with 'odd' and 'curious' and 'mad' as familiar, welcome friends the last time around.

Bilbo found the inn, and then found the innkeeper, and smiled amiably at the keen black eyes peering out above a bent nose and thick, well-groomed beard.

"A room, if you have one," Bilbo said. "And a meal and bath too." When the innkeeper simply stared at him, Bilbo frowned. "I can pay, of course."

"Just yourself?" The innkeeper asked, dark eyes flickering toward the door as if expecting a party of Hobbits to tumble through it.

"Just myself, yes," Bilbo said patiently. Visiting … well, Waystop, he supposed he'd call it. Visiting Waystop used to be easier, when he'd been with some of the Company, who would often come to visit him in the Shire and join him on little holidays.

The Dwarf glanced toward the door again, but shrugged in the end. "Room for the night?" At Bilbo's confirmation, he nodded, flicking open a book and making a notation. "One night, meals, a bath. Stabling a pony?" he glanced up from the book to pin Bilbo with a look.

"Nope, just myself." At the look of disbelief he received, Bilbo explained. "I've never cared for riding. Hobbits are meant to keep their feet on the ground, you know."

That drew the Dwarf's eyes down to Bilbo's bare, filthy feet, and the disbelief around him intensified. "I see." He purposely looked back to his book. "No pony. Room and board with extras—breakfast too, yeah?" At Bilbo's nod, he continued, "comes to two silver pennies for the night. Upfront, mind."

Bilbo was being horribly overpriced, and he hesitated for a moment. He could afford the hit, if he was careful down the line, and all he really wanted was a nice bath and place to sleep for the night that didn't involve rocks jamming into his spine, but he doubted he'd win any favors by letting himself get taken for a fool either. He bit back a sigh. "That's ludicrous," he argued, and tried to puff up his voice into something resembling irritation, aware that he was halfhearted about the whole affair.

The innkeeper scoffed. "Want a place to sleep, don't you?"

"Not if I'm getting fleeced for it. The rain would be kinder to my purse." Bilbo narrowed his eyes. "Three coppers, and that's fair." It wasn't fair at all. It was insulting, and the innkeeper took it that way, his beard twitching from indignant little huffs.

"You wouldn't get a horse's stall for three coppers." The innkeeper's eyes narrowed. "A silver and a half is the best I can do."

"Robbing me is the best you can do?" Bilbo scoffed right back. "Quarter of a silver—five coppers is all I can afford."

The innkeeper snorted. "You've come to the wrong inn then, haven't you?" He looked Bilbo up and down, scowling. "I could give you the room for ten, pushing my luck, but the rest will cost another five. Fifteen coppers, or I'll find a better paying customer."

It was still overpriced, by at least four copper pennies if Bilbo was any judge, but he didn't give a damn. "Fifteen coppers for room, meals, and a bath. You've a deal, Master..?"

"Fenrel, daughter of Striske, at your service." Fenrel nodded to him, a gleam in her eyes that told Bilbo he'd won a little favor with the Dwarf—and that Fenrel felt she'd won something off Bilbo too. Merchants did like a good haggle, and they liked even better a good win. And if an innkeeper wasn't a true merchant at heart, Bilbo didn't know who was.

Bilbo bowed a little, "Bilbo Baggins, at yours." He palmed the coins onto the bar, and Fenrel's eyes gleamed with approval—at Bilbo's manners or sleight of hand, he wasn't sure.

She nodded toward the stairs. "Second floor, second door on the left. A bath will be readied in an hour. Find a table for your meal while you wait, Master Baggins."

Bilbo did just that, after tucking his bags up in his room for safekeeping. As he slid into a seat at an empty table near the door, he spotted—well. It was the last person he'd expected to meet in Waystop, for certain.

Nori was sitting in a corner of the room, conversing with a group of fellows around a dice game.

Bilbo couldn't help staring. The thief was younger, to be sure, but aside from that? He was the same. Same complicated hair, same eyebrow braids, same charming smirk that promised all sorts of mischief.

Bilbo's heart felt like a butterfly beating wildly, trapped in his throat. He watched him out of the corners of his eyes throughout his meal—venison stew, lacking enough spice to do it justice, a roll of bread, and a pint of ale, not remarkable, but nothing to scoff at either—and all he could think the whole time was, _real, real, real._

 _That's Nori. He's really real. His eyebrows are just the same. But his beard… were there always three knots down his middle braid? But it_ is _Nori. I remember him. Every line at the corners of his eyes, every fold of his clothing hiding another knife, every grin, always full of trouble._

It was only as Bilbo was scraping the last of his stew from his bowl that he took his eyes off the Dwarf. Less than thirty seconds later, a hand was coming down on his shoulder, a cheerful, familiar voice floating down from beside him.

"Master Hobbit—Baggins, Fenrel said?" At Bilbo's startled, jerky nod, Nori continued. "I can't help noticing you admiring my fine form all evening."

Really, Bilbo should have known he hadn't gotten away with that. He cleared his throat. "Just watching the game."

Nori didn't believe him, but he didn't show it more than a slight tensing of his fingers against Bilbo's shoulder. He invited himself to a seat without a by-your-leave from Bilbo and waved for another ale. "It's an interesting play, to be sure. Do you gamble much, Master Baggins?"

The bartender came around with two pints, setting them down.

"I didn't order," Bilbo began, but Nori was already waving him off.

"It's on me," he said, eyes never leaving Bilbo's face. "So, do you?"

"Gamble?" Bilbo's mind scrambled over what to do, what to _say_. "Not… not often?" Not anymore, at any rate. At the occasional party, of course. It was practically tradition to bet on who would win what drinking contest, who would be the first to get on a table with a lively tune, who would corner whom with love's ambition gleaming from hopeful eyes. That hardly counted, really. Bilbo never won or lost more than a few coppers or drinks per party. And that all had been long ago, when Bilbo was an old Hobbit. Now he was a young one again, and the older set still marked him as one to be bet on, not one who would partake in the betting.

Nori's eyes gleamed with something a little too close to triumph—and even closer to mischief—than Bilbo liked. "Well now, that's interesting…"

Bilbo should have seen what was coming next.

~*~

Really, he should have.

Bilbo struggled from sleep like a fellow trying to loose himself from a troll sack. He fought hard enough to tumble right off the side of his bed, which wasn't all bad if he looked at it askew—an easy way to look at the world when one was on the floor with the room spinning around overhead—because it meant he'd finally worked himself free of the thin blanket he'd half-strangled himself in during the night.

How had he gotten back to his room? Bilbo groaned softly, pressing his hands into his eyes, dragging his nails against his scalp as if the distraction would jog his memory—or at least ease the pain throbbing against his skull.

Bilbo could not remember last night after his third ale with Nori.

Taking a deep, slow—very slow, as steady and calm as he could make it—breath, Bilbo dragged his mind over last night's events. Nori had come along. Bilbo had babbled nervously through three ales, trying not to admit he'd been staring at the thief, trying harder not to admit _why_. Somehow he didn't think explaining they'd met before sometime in a future that hadn't come around yet would sell too well with the Dwarf.

Nori had insisted on those ales, all three of them.

Nori had tried to get Bilbo drunk. He'd succeeded, even.

The thing of the matter was, Hobbits simply didn't get drunk that easily. And Bilbo was not the lightest weight in the Shire either, if he did say so himself. He couldn't be, between his own father's family wines and having grown up on old Gaffer Greenhand's moonshine. Apple cider in the fall, with a kick harder than a pony. Berry moonshine in the summer—blackberries most often, the Gaffer being partial, blueberries and strawberries otherwise… Usually whichever berries the Gaffer didn't salvage for pies and jams, sometimes an ambiguous mash of the lot of them. Dandelion wine when the Gaffer was in the mood for something unusual.

Bilbo's personal favorite was the tart, rich cherry moonshine he and Hamfast learned to cook up together. And it was good it was tart, because it kept a Hobbit from throwing back too much of the potent stuff. Worse than the cider, it was.

So how had Nori gotten him drunk off three mugs of ale, even if they were full pints instead of the usual half pint served in the Shire?

More than that, even if Bilbo had gotten a bit sloshed, why did his head pound so?

Bilbo had had six hangovers over the course of his life, and he could recall each one of them distinctly, all of them miserable affairs.

There'd been that bet to drink a full bottle of the Gaffer's cider, before Bilbo had even reached his tweens.

Then that first time he and Hamfast had made their cherry moonshine.

A contest at a Took family to-do that had led Bilbo to drink his weight in ale.

The Company's celebrations in Lake-town—and Bilbo still thought that headache had been as much to do with his oncoming cold than how much he'd imbibed.

Then Thorin's… And Fili and Kili… Well, after his boys had been returned to the stone, as the Dwarves said… Bilbo had had a touch too much to drink then, too. More than a touch too much, and thank the Valar there'd been enough spirits to do.

The sixth time was a bit hazier in Bilbo's memory. It was after his last little adventure to Erebor, after his retirement to Rivendell, after Frodo arrived on Elrond's doorstep half dead. After Frodo had left on his own terrible quest, following too close in Bilbo's footsteps, carrying a burden Bilbo had cast on him, however unwittingly. Bilbo's guilt had felt heavier than it had in years, and Arwen had come with comfort and Elvish wine to distract him. The sense of it was so strong in Bilbo's mind, but Bilbo's memory of those days was so distant, as though he'd been disconnected from himself… Maybe it had happened more than once. Maybe it had never happened at all. He couldn't count himself sure.

What Bilbo was sure of was all of his hangovers had been in his first go at life, none in his second. Perhaps he'd learned a little wisdom after all the years of practice.

Bilbo couldn't work his head around it, as he lay on the floor of his little rented room, his head aching something fierce, trying to recall what he and Nori had gotten up to only a few hours before.

Bilbo shouldn't have a hangover, surely. He shouldn't have gotten drunk at all. He was not _that_ stupid. …was he?

He narrowed his eyes at the ceiling as if it was the cause for his troubles. He squinted harder when a dim thought began forming at the corners of his mind. Had Nori..? Surely not. Nori did carry the correct herbs and tinctures, of course he did, but that didn't mean… No.

Surely he wouldn't have.

Bilbo wracked his memory, trying to recall if Nori's hands had slipped near Bilbo's drink at any time last night. No, not once. Bilbo had his eyes or hands on his mug the whole time—

No, that wasn't right. Somewhere through the third mug, Fenrel had come to tell Bilbo his bath was ready and was at risk of going cold, hadn't she? Bilbo had looked away from their table when he'd talked to her.

Bilbo had looked away from Nori.

 _Bilbo had looked away from Nori_.

And Nori had drugged him for his trouble.

Bilbo stared at the ceiling in blank disbelief, not quite willing to wrap his mind around that one. The thief had mentioned it on the quest, once or twice—only ever briefly, and well away from Dori's keen ears—the herbal mixes he occasionally used in his work. He'd said it came in handy for the worst knife fights and, once in a while, a particularly troublesome mark.

After several long minutes, Bilbo burst into action. It would have been a strange sight, if anyone had been there to see him; one second he was lying there, staring grimly at nothing in particular, and the next second he was rolling across the floor, kicking his blanket away—Nori had put him to bed and covered him with a blanket?—hard enough to send the thing halfway across the room, and pushing himself up onto his hands and knees as he reached his packs. He snagged the two modest bags and dragged them close, flicked the ties open and yanked open the worn leather flaps.

Everything about his packs was still neat and tidy. His clothes were folded precisely, his tube of papers still secured closed, his rations safely wrapped in their oilskin cloths. Bilbo carefully removed every single item from his bags, even going so far as to check the state of his handful of maps and papers. Then he tugged his travel cloak over and rummaged through all of its half-dozen pockets. Every personal item was there, looking untouched and intact, barring one. His travel jar of ink and the accompanying set of quills were gone, the fine ones his father had insisted he take with, a reminder of home.

And all of Bilbo's coin was gone. Every single last copper.

Nori had drugged him. Bilbo must have passed out. Nori must have "helped" Bilbo back to his room, and then continued on to help himself to Bilbo's belongings.

Bilbo felt… Well, rather in shock still, but somehow not surprised in the least. He really should have seen this coming, he knew it all the way down to his bones. He wasn't friends with Nori, not yet, not that being friends was a guarantee against Nori's sticky paws. He knew perfectly well that Nori was a thief, a good one.

Besides that, Bilbo was a lone traveler, easy pickings. He should be more surprised he hadn't been robbed before now—but in all honesty, he thought he was cleverer and quieter than all that, and it wasn't hard to avoid highway brigands.

Nori had _robbed_ him.

Bilbo dragged himself to his feet, cursing the loss of his coin and quills, the terrible ache in his head, the fact that he wouldn't be having a nice, proper, _hot_ sit-down breakfast anymore, and, most of all, his bloody stupidity.

And Bilbo hadn't even gotten to take his bath.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So chapters are slowly getting longer, eh? :)
> 
> Little note about a little change in the previous chapter: I've changed the amount of money Bilbo and the innkeeper haggle over, because a friend reminded me that there is some (admittedly very little) info about the structure of money in Middle-earth: 30 silver pennies is a considerable loss, and a pony is worth 4 silver pennies. So, for the purposes of this fic:  
> 20 coppers = 1 silver penny  
> 40 pennies = 1 gold piece  
> (Yep, I've completely made this up.)
> 
>  _You do not need to reread that scene for any new information, because aside from the money values shifting around a little, everything is the same!_ :) Enjoy the next chapter!

"Hey!" Bilbo shouted at the back of the Dwarf walking a good hundred paces ahead of him. It was a distance, and the hood obscured the hair, but Bilbo would know that Dwarf anywhere. The gait, the knives peeking out of the boots—at least the knives that could be seen.

The Dwarf stopped dead in his tracks, twisting around to watch Bilbo sprinting toward him at a decent clip.

The gobsmacked look on Nori's face would have made Bilbo smug indeed any other time. As it was, Bilbo was still a little too peeved to find it funny. That didn't mean he wouldn't savor the gem of an expression later. It would be one of his fondest memories. He would pull out the story for Dwalin every time they shared a pint, Bilbo promised himself with grim humor. That was, as soon as he convinced Dwalin he was worth the stolid Dwarf's time.

In Nori's favor, the thief didn't bother trying to run. He looked too stunned for that, all the way up until Bilbo caught up with him and stuck a finger in his face.

"You robbed me!" Bilbo declared, as if Nori didn't already know it.

Bilbo had been travelling all day with little food and no rest so he could catch up to the thief who'd scarpered out of Waystop minutes after robbing him. Which was sensible for a thief to do, Bilbo supposed, scarpering. That didn't stop him from being any less irritated about having to dash after Nori for a full day.

Nori blinked, clearly taken aback, but he pulled himself together quickly; not surprising, given Nori lived by his wits more often than not. "What are you doing here, Master… Bilbo, was it?" he asked, before turning on his heel in a clear dismissal. "Theft, you said? Now, it's not my fault if you've misplaced a coin or two after having a few too many."

 _Bold as you please! Not giving a single bother over the accusation!_ He caught up to the Dwarf trying to saunter away. "You robbed me," he said again, as if it would make Nori burst out with confessions of guilt. And then, because he'd just noticed, "What's happened to your hair?"

Nori automatically smoothed a hand over his… over his _flat_ hair, thumb grazing an unbraided eyebrow, as if it felt as strange to him as it looked to Bilbo. His eyes narrowed as his hand dropped away. "Observant blighter, ain't ya?"

Bilbo stared right back, keeping pace as Nori continued down the compact dirt trail. If it could be called a trail. It was some narrow path, more flattened underbrush than a worn dirt track, cutting through the pine woods that crept up the up the slopes of the mountain. Bilbo had only found it because he'd traded almost a quarter of his jerky rations for a little insight on thieves' routes on his way out of Waystop.

If Bilbo didn't trust Nori, he would have been concerned about following him down this dim path. As it was, worry was starting to nibble at the corners of his mind. Had Nori ever said whether he lured his marks into traps? Bilbo had gotten his bit of information so easily, back in Waystop. Was it too easy? He'd written it off as his notorious good luck.

Still, it didn't stop Bilbo's mouth from speaking on without his permission. "I'm keen enough, thank-you. Why've you removed all your braids?"

Nori did his best to ignore him, tromping on without answering.

Bilbo let Nori fall to the front, trailing behind him and staring at the Dwarf's back. His question was a little rude, he knew, and he didn't really expect him to answer. There was an idea niggling at the back his mind, and he let it percolate to the surface. "It's because you stole from me, isn't it," he said thoughtfully. "Changing your hair lets you get around, ah, discreetly."

Nori whipped around on him, surprise and frustration warring for dominance in his manner. "You were drunk off your legs last night. How would you know who took what? How did you _get_ here?"

Bilbo sniffed, nose scrunching. "You tried to get me drunk, it didn't work, and you drugged me for your pains, or I'm an Elf."

"You're no thief," Nori muttered, sounding more like he was speaking to himself. His eyes scanned over Bilbo from head to toe. "Or _I'm_ a bloody tree-shagger."

Bilbo huffed, then bowed politely with a grin on his face. "Bilbo Baggins, at your service, Master Tree-shagger. Now, I'd like my belongings back, if you so please."

"I don't please!" Nori said quickly, and turned to march off again, as if his determination alone would keep Bilbo from following. "I have nothing of yours! Stop saying I stole off you."

"You did!" Bilbo returned, following him.

"Didn't!"

"Did!"

"Didn't!"

"Prove it then," Bilbo challenged. "Show me your bags."

Nori scoffed. "You must think me a fool."

"Nope, just a thief," Bilbo said tartly. "I'm not—"

"Stop saying that! Bug off!"

Bilbo frowned at him, but soldiered on anyway. "I'm not going anywhere until you return my coin!"

Nori scowled. "I told ya, I'm no thief. Would you go away?"

"Do you really expect me to believe that?"

Nori growled, stopping abruptly once more to face Bilbo. He turned the most beseeching, honest eyes on Bilbo that he'd ever seen, short of Merry and Pippin. The similarity to Ori was astonishing.

If Bilbo didn't know Nori so well, he might have just believed that look.

"Look," Nori said. "I'm running late for a meet-up. I don't have time for your astonishin' accusations, and I'd like you not to ruin my reputation, if it's all the same to you."

"You wouldn't be running late if you hadn't spent the night plying me with drink," Bilbo said reasonably. He wasn't going to budge no matter how hard Nori pushed.

Nori stared at him. After a long minute weighing his odds, he said, "One coin looks like another. For all I know _you're_ the thief and you'll take one look at my purse and claim it's all yours."

Bilbo groaned. "Are you honestly suggesting I'm the thief after you rifled through all of my belongings not a day ago?" He waved around at their surroundings vaguely, like that would prove his point. "This is the most ridiculous conversation—"

"Yeah, so bug off!" Nori suggested again. Then he froze, Bilbo right along with him. They both turned their sights down the path, the direction Nori had been headed. There it came again, a _snap_ , and the rustling hiss of something brushing against leaves.

Bilbo felt his breath catch in his throat.

Nori cursed quietly. He twisted back to Bilbo, a positively desperate cast to his face. "Would you please fuck off?" he hissed, and despite the rude manner, his face was full of pleading.

Bilbo could really only think of one reason why Nori would look so _scared_. Even when faced with a forest of giant spiders outnumbering them ten to one he hadn't looked this unnerved. Bilbo crossed his arms. "I told you, I'm not going anywhere until I'm reimbursed for my losses."

Nori moved to hustle him off the path, into some bushes, like he intended to physically remove Bilbo from the path, but there was another snapping noise of a branch cracking under someone's foot—much closer now. Close enough to hear someone muttering no doubt fiery curses under his breath.

"Nori! Where have you been? You're late—who's your friend?"

Nori groaned, hands dropping away from where they were preparing to haul Bilbo off the trail, only to swoop up and drag across his face. "Dori," he said, with such an utter lack of enthusiasm that Bilbo had to bite back a chuckle. "This is…" Nori stared at him. Bilbo raised his eyebrows in challenge. When Nori didn't go on, he stepped around the Dwarf to get a good look at Dori.

Bilbo bowed. "Bilbo Baggins, at your service, Master—Dori, I presume?" Dori gave a curt nod, eying him suspiciously. "Master Nori robbed me last evening, and I am endeavoring to recollect my belongings."

Dori blanched. Nori hissed in disbelief. Dori's suspicious glare turned instantly on his brother.

"Is this true?"

"'course not!" Nori held up his hands. "He's the thief!"

Bilbo huffed. "Come off it. You stole all my coin, which I _need_ , thank-you." After a pause, he thought to add, "And I can prove it."

Nori glowered. Perhaps he was thinking of the same thing Bilbo was.

Dori gave Bilbo an appraising look. "How can you prove Nori's," he cast a quick, furious look at his brother, "ignominy?" He held up a hand as though to ward off an argument Bilbo had yet to make. "Not that I don't believe you, Mister Baggins. You're only too right in noticing my brother's disregard for anything resembling the law or common decency." He threw another dirty look to Nori, who crossed his arms in growing indignation.

"Ignominy!" Nori grumbled. "Who kept this family fed when you were off being unignominious?"

Dori's eyes narrowed further.

Bilbo sensed the impending fight and cleared his throat. "I can prove the theft because—" Both brothers turned to stare at him as though they'd entirely forgotten he was there, both of them half startled, half suspicious, and fully in a temper. Bilbo winced, but hurried on. "Because he took some quills and an inkwell too."

Dori harrumphed loudly, glaring murder at Nori. "Is that so? You were planning to give _stolen_ goods—"

"The inkwell has the initials B.B. in filigree on the stopper," Bilbo finished loudly. "Quite distinguished. My father's, you know."

" _Heirlooms_?" Dori hissed, turning back on Nori in a flash. "You stole heirlooms!"

Bilbo winced, glancing toward Nori apologetically, even if Nori _had_ robbed him. Dori's wrath was something to be respected.

"He's lying!" Nori protested, a bit weakly in Bilbo's opinion. The softest touch in the whole of the Shire could have seen through that.

Dori's hands clenched into fists against his hips in the sign of parental fury across all of Arda, which was likely for the best, otherwise said hands might have ended wrapped around Nori's neck, and Dori's strength was a thing of legend. Much like his wrath.

"Empty your pockets," Dori ordered. Bilbo startled, not choking back his laugh quite fast enough if Nori's dirty look was anything to go by. Eru, Bilbo was going to catch trouble from the thief for this meeting before they were through. He could feel it all the way down to his toes.

"Dori," Nori wheedled, slanting a speaking look in Bilbo's direction.

Dori scoffed. "If you don't have them, you won't mind proving it."

Nori crossed his arms. "It's a matter of principle. I've got my pride."

"So help me, Nori, you will empty your pockets—and your bags, and your cloak, and your tunic, and your boots if it comes to it—or I will do it for you." He tapped his boot impatiently, his look of embarrassed fury not budging an inch.

Nori stared at him a long minute, likely trying to judge Dori's bluff. The problem was, and Bilbo was sure Nori knew it as perfectly well as Bilbo did: Dori didn't bluff. How many times did Nori himself delight in telling tales of Dori cutting off his beard to spite his face, as it were? He'd certainly spoken of it often enough with Bilbo, so very many years ago. As Nori told it, Dori had refused sales of his merchandise to more than one customer who tried to chisel him out of his wares' worth, even after the customer caved and agreed to a fair sum. Dori never denied the tales either.

Nori grumbled something under his breath as he swung his pack of his back. He moved to open it, but stopped and cast Dori and Bilbo suspicious looks. He stuffed his hand beneath the flap, digging around blindly without revealing its contents to either of them. A minute later, he fished out a familiar inkwell, chucking it at Dori with another muttered curse. Bilbo smiled to see the jar, happier than he would have ever supposed at its safe return. His father had had it made for his mother, for when she travelled on one of her adventures, but Belladonna never wrote during her journeys, and she'd insisted Bungo keep it, and use it when she was away to remind him she would always return. His parents were like that, sweet on each other to the last.

Dori made an incomprehensible, garbling noise that quite alarmed Bilbo, jarring him out of his reminiscence. Dori was studying the inkwell closely, quite like a collector looking over an item under consideration, and Nori was looking unusually dismayed.

Nori dug his elbow into Bilbo's chest, holding out a handful of quills. "Quick, just take them," he muttered, as if getting them back into Bilbo's possession would mitigate Dori's outrage.

"Crystal," Dori practically spit. "Silver inlay. An expert crafter. Obviously well cared for." He glared daggers at Nori. "And you're surprised Mister Baggins tracked you down?"

Nori sighed loudly. "How was I supposed to know he'd be able to track me with half a day's lead on him?" And then, quieter so that Bilbo wasn't sure Dori could hear, "I didn't think he'd be able to stand with a straight head for a full day."

"Is that supposed to be a defense?" Bilbo couldn't help asking.

Dori snorted his agreement. He turned to Bilbo, catching sight of the pens in his hand. He nodded at them. "And what else has my sand-brained brother taken off you, Mister Baggins?"

"Just some coin," Bilbo said quickly, hoping that might be some sort of assurance, though he wasn't quite sure how it would be.

"How much?" Dori asked, his tone shifting to businesslike, a merchant at work. Bilbo had the vague notion Dori expected him to lie about it, and hoped he'd believe him when he said the truth.

"Fourteen silver pennies and a pouch of coppers, somewhere between forty and fifty, though I couldn't tell you more precisely than that."

Dori looked taken aback. Indeed, perhaps it was Bilbo's imagination, but he thought he saw Dori almost step back. Maybe Dori believed him, and was positively staggered by Bilbo's inexplicable honesty. Bilbo almost smiled at the thought, because it was so like Dori. It was difficult, to pretend to be strangers with people Bilbo knew, people he counted as friends and family. And Bilbo was beginning to suspect it would grow more difficult as time went, more so than he'd ever imagined when he'd begun his planning. It was enough to make his head spin.

But it was nice, too, as complicated as everything was. It was another little piece of proof that his memories were real, and not a story from some madness.

Perhaps Bilbo was being the foolish, naïve one here. Perhaps lying and cheating were expected because it was the norm, and Bilbo was being unaccountably nice for someone who'd been robbed by one of the two strangers before him. But they weren't strangers, and Bilbo couldn't bring himself to treat them that way, just like couldn't be the proper gentlehobbit he'd been a hundred years past.

Dori nodded slowly, shooting Nori a pointed glance, but Nori was already digging through his pack again, complaining so quietly beneath his breath as to be unheard. He held out Bilbo's pouch of copper a moment later, untouched since he lifted it from Bilbo's belongings. The silver took longer; Bilbo had had his silver stowed about his person, even sown into hidden pockets of his travel cloak, and Nori needed to dig them out from wherever he'd stashed them.

Dori turned back to Bilbo, apparently finished with his brother's activities. "How can we repay you for your trouble, Mister Baggins?" His voice was all business again, ignoring Nori's squawked "What?" in the background.

"Ah." Bilbo blinked. He hadn't been expecting such a question, no matter how fair-minded Dori was. "Having my belongings back is more than enough, Master Dori."

Dori was waving him off before he finished speaking. "You've been inconvenienced by a whole day, from the sound of it, never mind whatever means my brother used to steal from you. It is the least we can do to offer some recompense."

"It is?" Nori said, disbelief lacing his voice. "We do? I don' think I do, come to it."

"Do stop flapping, Nori," Dori snapped. "Ori's waiting on us—alone! Guarding the ponies, with who knows what brigands waiting on a lone traveler!"

Nori's, "Ori can take care of himself just fine, I've seen to that" went ignored as Dori continued on.

"Because someone decided he had to use this rabbit's path through the wood to meet us on the way to the Halls. It's only the most inconvenient place in all the mountain, a veritable thieves' den—" he threw a particularly hard look at said thief, "—that no pony could follow, and then said brother chose to _rob someone_ and in turn _make himself near a day late_ meeting us, so he will stop talking and let me conduct business. I'd like to get back to Ori, if you don't mind!"

Bilbo joined Nori in staring by the end of his tirade. Bilbo, for his part, was making sure Dori's rant was well and truly over. Just to be sure. Not that he was frightened of the irate Dwarf or anything.

"Ah," Bilbo said, when he was fairly certain it was safe. "Did you say the Halls? Do you mean Thorin's Halls?" It was Dori's turn to stare at him now, and Nori too, it seemed. He felt a flush rise in his ears at the sudden, avid attention, but pushed on. "I'm headed that way, and in honesty, I'd appreciate some company on the road, especially after my run-in last night." He shot a sardonic look toward Nori. After long minutes of silence, he added, hesitantly, "That is, if it's no trouble."

"What do you want to go to the Halls for?" Nori asked, sounding genuinely baffled for one of the rare times that Bilbo had known him over the years.

"To see them?" Bilbo asked more than said. At their continuing blank stares, he added, "To—to work too."

Dori's expression cleared. "So you're a merchant." He looked Bilbo over, cataloging his appearance, his single pack, the fact that he was alone. His expression slowly turned toward confusion again. "Are there others back long the road you'll catch up with in the mountains proper?"

"Ah," Bilbo said again, floundering a little. It was inescapably stupid of him, but he hadn't thought of a story to explain himself to anyone who asked, and of course everyone would ask, wouldn't they? Why in the name of all that was green would a lone Hobbit show up in the middle of the Dwarves' mountains—and to work, of all things? "I… no, I'm not a merchant. I'm, ah, Bilbo Baggins, that is—I am… me." He could have hit himself. Or sunk down into the earth, never to be seen again—if only mountain earth was not so cursed hard. He felt like Gandalf, on a bad day. If Gandalf had bad days.

Nori was beginning to smirk. "You are, are you?"

Dori was beginning to look distinctly concerned. For what, precisely, Bilbo couldn't say. Maybe he thought Bilbo was slow-witted. At this moment in time, Bilbo couldn't blame him for it.

Bilbo gave Nori as best a waspish look as his embarrassment allowed. "I'm on a bit of an adventure, you could say. To see something of the world beyond the Shire—my, my homeland that is." Except it wasn't quite his home, anymore. As much as he loved it, as important as the Shire was to him, he'd learned long ago that home had to do more with his heart than his land. It was still one of the hardest lessons he'd ever been forced to face.

"What is your mastery, Mister Baggins?" Dori asked, apparently deciding to set aside his concerns for Bilbo's sanity for the moment.

"I don't have one," Bilbo admitted bluntly. "Not a mastery as Dwarves would call it, as I understand it. I've written a fair bit, have studied a great deal of history, and am handy at scribe work, cooking, bookkeeping, some apothecary work, and growing a decent garden—which you'll find often relates to cooking and apothecaries." He grinned at them. "I figured I could find something to make myself useful."

Sometime during Bilbo's little speech Dori had taken to giving him an appraising look. Even Nori looked intrigued, and he beat his brother to the business at hand.

"Dori's always looking for a decent accountant. And by decent, I mean cheap here. I just bet if you're competent and will work for pennies, he'll be more than happy to bring you with us." Nori smirked when Dori moved to punch him in the arm, dancing away before his brother could get a hit.

Dori flushed red. "I do need a bookkeeper, Mister Baggins, if you’re inclined. I'll most certainly pay you fairly." His look to Nori promised a painful demise. "If you can do books on the road, and we consider travelling accommodations and meals—" Nori laughed, "—two coppers a day would be fair, I'd say."

"That's fine. Lovely," Bilbo agreed quickly, not caring whether it was fair or not—and he was leaning more toward 'fair' despite Nori's remarks. It was worth it to be able to spend the rest of his days on the road with the Ri brothers. It was more than he'd hoped or even imagined when he'd taken to the road. "I would appreciate the company, as I said," he said happily, "and with the added income I'll be able to settle into Thorin's Halls easier. Thank you, Master Dori." He bowed politely.

Nori groaned. "With the two of you, the next two weeks will be just delightful."

Bilbo grinned at him. "Consider it your due for stealing from me."

Dori snorted a small laugh, then frowned deeply at himself as if to ward off the good humor. "If that's business concluded, I'd like to get back on our way." He looked around at them, nodded, and turned on his heel. Bilbo could practically hear Dori's silent fretting over Ori's wellbeing.

"Welcome to the family." Nori slung a companionable arm around Bilbo's shoulders despite the narrow path. "Odds are you'll regret it before the night's out."

Bilbo knew Nori was wrong on that bet. He'd not known it this morning, but Nori's robbing him had been the best thing to happen to him in two years. But he kept the thought to himself.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...yep, the chapters just keep growing. XD And I'm quite impressed (aka totally surprised) I'm managing to post a second chapter within a week. Enjoy!

Ori was perched atop a boulder tucked behind a few trees, knitting peacefully when the three of them found their way back to the road Dori and Ori were traveling—different than the one running through Waystop, a harder road favored by some Dwarves only because it was a slightly faster route.

"You're late," Ori said, to Nori presumably, without looking up from his work. "Dori was upset."

Dori hummed appreciatively. "At least some around here considers my position."

"Your _position_ ," Nori started, but Bilbo instinctively elbowed him in the ribs, stopping him short before he started a brawl—Dori would win, hands down, no matter how dirty Nori fought. Only after did Bilbo realize it was a much too familiar act, the knowledge compounded by the puzzled frown on Nori's face, as if he was trying to work something out. Something about Bilbo, and didn't that just put him on edge.

"Ori," Nori called instead, voice a little too thoughtful for Bilbo's comfort, "Come meet our traveling companion."

Ori frowned at the yarn in his lap, shoved the stitches down the knitting needles, and looked up. When he caught sight of Bilbo, his jaw fell open. "A Hobbit!"

Bilbo was beginning to realize Thorin had called him a Halfling just to irritate him, once upon a time. He stepped forward, bowing at his waist. "Bilbo Baggins, at your service."

Ori about fell off his perch in his haste to get down. As soon as his feet hit the ground, he bowed in return. "Ori, son of Adri, at yours." Then he looked reproachfully at his brothers. "You found a Hobbit in the wood? I knew I should have come with!"

Ori sounded like he'd missed the find of a lifetime. Bilbo bit his cheek to keep from laughing, though it didn't stop his smile from coming through. He knew without a doubt that Ori regretted the hours he'd lost guarding the ponies when he could have been asking Bilbo questions about the Shire.

"He's coming along with us," Nori grunted, sauntering over to add his packs to the pile near their three ponies. "You've got all the time in the world to pester him."

Ori didn't even argue the point, just grinned at Bilbo as though he was the most delightful discovery in all of the Blue Mountains. He barely glanced at his brothers.

Bilbo couldn't help smiling back at him. "Dori mentioned you're a scribe." Once they'd started their trek back to the road, Dori's temper had cooled considerably. It'd been easy to prompt him about his youngest brother. "I'm a historian myself. I'm sure we have plenty to discuss."

That was how Bilbo met the last of the Ri brothers.

~*~

"Welcome to Thorin's Halls of the Blue Mountains," Nori declared, an edge to his voice as he swept into an ostentatious bow.

Bilbo followed the direction of Nori's elaborate wave, but saw nothing more than a narrow path between two massive boulders. Which, to Bilbo's memory, was as it should be. Didn't the entrance to the Halls lie some miles ahead up the mountain yet? He'd been here before, after all, on a sojourn with Dwalin, Bofur and Balin.

"Am I missing something?" Bilbo asked.

"Yeah, me." Nori gave another odd, edged smile, nodded to Bilbo, and stepped off the path, quickly disappearing behind broken slabs of stone.

Bilbo tracked him for the brief time he could, confusion yawning wide in his mind. He barely noticed Dori's irritable snort, or the jostle of reins as the ponies began forward again. He only turned his attention back to their little group when Ori gripped his shoulder.

"Don't mind Nori." But Ori was watching where his brother had vanished to too. His brown eyes were dark with worry when he looked back to Bilbo. "He's heading a different way into the mountain."

Bilbo hummed, casting one glance back toward Nori's exit before following in Dori's footsteps. "There's another way in?"

Dori made another derisive snort, loud enough to be heard from where he walked ahead of them, leading the ponies. "There are four doors into the halls, Mister Bilbo. The one we're approaching, and two more for other, official purposes."

Bilbo waited. Dori didn't add anything more. "And the fourth door?" he asked after awhile, only a little reluctantly. Ori was often eager to explain strange little odds and ends to Bilbo, but he was uncommonly silent on the matter. And Dori, who wasn't chatty precisely, but was open enough, was now closed tight as a skinflint's purse strings.

Ori made a protesting noise at the back of his throat. Dori grumbled, then said grudgingly,

"The thieves' door."

"I see," Bilbo said, and thought he rather should have realized that earlier. "That makes sense, I suppose."

"It's not really a door," Ori amended quickly, as though he'd been waiting for the all clear to explain. "There's plenty of holes in and out of the halls here. The city is ancient and worn around the edges. We can't mend it all." He sounded personally embarrassed about it, even though it was a boon for Nori's work. That was Dwarves, Bilbo supposed. They fretted about Ages-old craftsmanship going rusty around the edges, wanting each piece of work to shine at its best through time.

"Never mind the holes the thieves put in themselves," Dori said sharply, as if he read Bilbo's thoughts.

Ori made that same protesting noise, but didn't argue the point. He said instead, "Nori doesn't like official channels."

"I've noticed," Bilbo said, voice dry.

Ori's smile was fleeting, worry still nibbling at its edges. "He's technically not a criminal. There's no call for his arrest, and he could come and go as he pleases, but he has a certain reputation, and…"

"He doesn't like the guard knowing when he's coming and going," Bilbo finished. "It does make sense, given the givens."

Ori's smile was warmer this time, and surprised. "Suppose so."

"Doesn't mean you have to like it," Bilbo added.

Ori only nodded.

Dori hushed them both. "No more gossip, the pair of you. We're coming to the first sentry post leading to the gates, and I'll thank you not to feed the _guards_ ' rampaging chatter on top of your own."

Ori scrunched his nose at Dori's back. Bilbo caught his eye and winked at him, just to get Ori to smile.

"He'll be fine," Bilbo said under his breath. "From what I've seen, he's the sort who can charm his way out of any tight spot."

"Or into one," Ori muttered back, but the worry eased from his bearing, and they passed the three sentries leading to Thorin's Halls in a lighter mood.

~*~

The good mood vanished promptly upon Bilbo's arrival at the actual entrance into the Halls—little more than a vast, dark tunnel leading deep into the mountain. Or at any rate, Bilbo's good mood vanished.

One of the two guards on duty looked Bilbo up and down. "What's this? You're no Dwarf, that's for certain."

"You've keen sight, Master..?" When the guard provided no name, Bilbo continued on, "Master Dwarf. Indeed I am no Dwarf. I am a Hobbit from top to bottom."

"What's a Halfling doing in the mountains?" the guard asked, looking him up and down again like he was something unfortunate on the bottom of his boot. Bilbo wondered if Dwalin made his guards practice that look.

Dori huffed and elbowed his way past Bilbo before he could correct the Dwarf's rude manners. "I am Dori, son of Adri, merchant of these halls. If you must concern yourself with our affairs, then I shall tell you: my brother and I have returned with a skilled accountant in our employ. Does that satisfy?"

Bilbo balked at 'skilled' but he was wise enough to keep that to himself, instead marveling at the way Dori was slowly puffing up as though preparing to fight his way inside—though Bilbo sincerely hoped it didn't come to that.

It had been more than a few decades since his last trip to the Blue Mountains, true enough, and matters were different from then and now. For one, these Dwarves did not know—or know of—him. He was not a friend of Dwarves, or hero of Erebor, not anymore. Nonetheless, Bilbo couldn't fathom being banned from entering the Halls. The Dwarves of Ered Luin were insular and careful of their secrets to be sure, but they didn't ban all outsiders out of hand. They held close their secrets—which were admittedly many—but they didn't hold closed their _doors_.

"Why should a Halfling want to be an accountant to one of our merchants?" the guard asked.

"I take issue with your implications, Guardsman." Dori turned up his chin, eyes narrowing dangerously.

"I'm a Hobbit actually," Bilbo added, before Dori truly did start a brawl. "Halfling is a misnomer, wouldn't you say? Given to my people by Bree-men, and it caught on after that. We're not half of anything, as we say in the Shire."

The guard looked him over again, and Bilbo was seconds away from rolling his eyes at him, or snapping something impatient, which wouldn't get him anywhere. But the guard seemed, well, if not _impressed_ , then at least mollified by Bilbo's temerity.

"An accountant," the guard verified.

Bilbo nodded. "For Master Dori's textiles business."

"What should a Hobbit," the guard said the word pointedly, "want with work in our halls?"

Bilbo had been giving this some thought since Dori and Nori caught him flatfooted in the woods. There wasn't much of an argument he could lay out without getting caught up in a pack of lies, but he could speak the truth and hope for a little more time to sort out the particulars.

"I'm an eccentric," Bilbo said with perfect honesty, looking the guard square in the eye even as his partner gave a sharp bark of laughter at the confession, clearly eavesdropping from his station across the other end of the gate. No doubt the pair of them would be telling the tale of Bilbo's arrival to the guards in the station on the other side of the gate just as soon as they could.

"Truly," Bilbo insisted. "You may ask anyone in the Shire about me. Bilbo Baggins is my name. They will tell you the same; I'm an eccentric, and ill-suited to our quiet borders. I decided to travel and see something of the world, and as it happens, I decided to see the Blue Mountains first. I was fortunate enough to meet Dori, who was looking for a fair hand at bookkeeping."

"And are ye?" The second guard called across the way, giving up any pretense of not listening in.

Bilbo bowed politely in his direction. "A fair hand? Certainly, I should say."

Dori sniffed, disdainful, giving both guards reproving looks. "Modest too, like most Shirefolk, from what I've gathered. He's more than fair at his work. Now, if you're finished with your interrogation, I do have matters to attend to as soon as may be. Returning home is no simple task finished as soon as one arrives."

"Almost," the guard said, gesturing impatiently at the three of them. "Where is Master Baggins planning to lodge while he's here?" The guard turned a sharp eye on Bilbo. "Have you coin to make your way?"

"Don't be a fool," Dori snapped.

At the same time, Ori spoke up, "He's staying with us."

"He is?" The guard's wild brown beard twitched, shooting a nettled eye between Dori and Ori.

"I am?" It was news to Bilbo. He looked between Dori and Ori too. Ori was beaming at him, nodding cheerfully.

"I'm hardly likely to leave you on the streets, homeless and lost as like as not," Dori scoffed, still holding his glare firmly on the guard.

Despite Dori's reasonable argument, Bilbo felt like he was missing something important, something he couldn't put his finger on. Dori didn't trust easily, but he was accepting Bilbo into his home with nary a suspicious glance? Without Bilbo even asking for help with lodgings? It could have been Ori's fondness of him—but shouldn't his being around Ori make the older Dwarf more overprotective, not less?

Whatever the case, Dori wasn't volunteering an explanation, nor was Ori, who was near to bouncing on his toes in pleasure, and Bilbo couldn't think how to ask, least of all in front of the nosy guards.

"I can show you the rest of my chronicles," Ori told him brightly. "And my calligraphy. I'm a student in the scribe guild, remember my explaining the guilds? I've almost completed my masterwork for the historian's guild, and this year I hope to earn an apprenticeship with a master craftsman in scribe-work."

Bilbo turned away from the brothers, trying to blink the surprise away and clear his distracted thoughts. He smiled helplessly at Ori's enthusiasm, and nodded to the guard. "I have some money saved aside, but as you see, I'm staying with Master Dori and Ori until I can properly support myself."

The guard snorted, "Being one shop's accountant isn't going to support someone even as small as you." But he nodded respectfully at Dori. "But never mind your own business. You'll have to sign into the records past the gates, and then you can be on your way." He signaled to someone out of sight, and the gates began parting, drawn open by some great gears hidden in the shadows inside.

"Welcome to Thorin's Halls," Ori said, echoing Nori but with a great deal more cheer. The pair of guards watched them until they disappeared into the dim depths of the tunnel, the echo of the ponies' hooves following them the whole way through.

~*~

The layout of Thorin's Halls was, well. It was unusual, given the facts.

Glóin called it a shanty town, if a pleasing one in its own way—Bilbo hadn't know what he'd meant until Balin compared it to Lake-town's reinventing itself on wooden stilts. Lake-town, Balin had explained, worked well enough in the short term, but it wouldn't hold up over time. Water rot, weather, the inevitable waking of Smaug, even simple population growth… and then what would the town to do? It was a stopgap measure because the Men of Esgaroth had no other option. The same was true of Thorin's Halls. It was a fine safe haven they sorely needed, and peaceful enough to recover their strength… But it couldn't last. It simply wasn't stable enough.

Bilbo had never gone far into the Halls' depths. When he'd traveled to the Blue Mountains with some of the Company, they'd kept to the buildings and courtyards nearer the gates, and the vast open spaces above the stone. But what he did remember, and what he'd learned of this settlement, well, even Dwalin remarked on the uncommon nature of it, which was saying something, since he preferred keeping his opinions to himself unless a fight was brewing.

It boiled down to the fact that the Halls were built on the bones of Nogrod. The fortress city had risen to greatness and fallen to destruction Ages before Thorin and his father had led their people to the ruin. The halls and buildings were caved in, the mines were by and large tapped out, and those that were healthy were dangerous to work. New mines and new homes could not be tunneled out without risking the wrath of the sea that had taken over much of the buried city. The Dwarves of Erebor could only work with what was already there and salvageable, and that was precious little.

The Halls were nonetheless vast to a Hobbit's perspective. Though the corridors were narrower than Erebor's, half a dozen Hobbits could still march down them side-by-side, and more often than not the winding hallways and stairs opened into vast spaces. It was a warren of halls and streets, courtyards and buildings, it would take weeks to discover every room, and months to memorize any of it.

Dori led them along the dimly lit gate tunnel, at the end of which they indeed met two more guards, who watched them as they all signed their names and occupations in a vast book of columns and rows marking the date and identity of every arrival. A census, Bilbo realized, like those that were kept in the Shire, but instead of recording nothing more than births, marriages, and deaths, the Dwarves kept track of their people's arrivals. And, Bilbo saw on another column, their leave-taking too. No wonder Nori found another way in. Such attention to detail would play havoc on his activities.

There had been no census the times Bilbo had come to Ered Luin, after the quest, but by then the settlement had truly become a ghost town, more full of memory than living people. Bilbo wondered if Erebor had kept similar records. Would he have found out, if he'd been willing to stay past their—after the burials?

Once past the tunnel, they entered a broad, familiar courtyard. If they kept on going straight, Bilbo knew they would come to one of the Halls' throne rooms, a long, columned hall with a steep dais at the end. All around the throne room was a warren of narrow halls and small rooms for officials to get on with the business of running a city, and beyond that were stairs leading down deeper into the mountain.

To the right would be the halls and stairs that led directly to the markets and shops and stalls, all of them packed so neatly together that they formed their own streets and alleyways. Beyond the markets were homes, houses built straight into the stone. And beyond that, deeper down, the forges and smiths, and the vast baths—but Bilbo had never been so far. He'd only ever heard Balin's tales of those streets as his Dwarves showed him the upper halls and outer courtyards.

Those were to the left, where Dori turned the ponies. Bilbo followed dutifully behind, wondering how different the settlement would look now that it was full of life again.

Dori's chosen path led them down several long, gated corridors that dipped slowly down into another low tunnel. As they neared the end, approaching the last gate, sunlight began filtering across the stone in sharp geometric shapes. A guard tugged open the carved gate as they neared, causing the geometric patterns of sunlight to shimmer and morph and vanish altogether, and Dori led the ponies, Ori, and Bilbo out into the day once more.

It was the stable yard, where all the mountain's ponies and horses were kept and looked after. Past the yard, the terrain swept smoothly downward, until the ground leveled out and opened up enough to hold a handful of fields and farms, all caught between the mountains and the sea. There was another pen for riding boars kept a little distance on, and beyond that were training yards and archery fields. Not far from the training yards were guard barracks, where those on rotation or in training spent their nights. Far on the other side of the open fields wooden houses sat nestled close to the sheer rise of the mountain, more homes and roads carved out of the stone itself, leading back into the Halls proper.

Caught between the mountain yards, the houses, and the distant sheer drop to the sea lay square patches of farmland, though not near so lush as the farms in the Shire tended to be.

There was an eyrie further up the mountain, Bilbo recalled distantly as he caught sight of a bird wheeling up high above. But for the most part he was still caught up with the sight before him, seeing the Halls full of life and thriving. It was beautiful.

"I'll be stabling the ponies," Dori said somewhere to the side, barely bringing Bilbo out of his awed study. "Make sure Mister Bilbo doesn't wander off, Ori."

Bilbo wanted to protest he was perfectly capable of looking after himself, but Dori was off by the time he pulled himself together enough to glance over. Ori smiled shyly at him.

"Don't mind Dori. He's the brusque sort." Ori glanced out across the fields. "It's not really proper," he admitted quietly. "It's not much to look at, is it? But it's home."

"Here I was thinking it's lovely," Bilbo said, following Ori's gaze back to the sea, but not missing the scribe's surprise along the way. "Maybe it's not very Dwarvish, at the end of the day, but you've accomplished just lovely things here, don't you think?"

Ori's voice was soft and pleased. "Yeah, I do really."

Bilbo smiled to himself, remembering how well Balin thought of their years in the Blue Mountains, no matter how short-lived he knew they would be, and how Fíli and Kíli called this place home, no matter that their uncle's heart yearned for another place. Those memories made him savor the view before him all the more.

"Is that everything?" a deep, oh so familiar voice called out not fifty feet away, as if Bilbo's own thoughts had conjured him.

Bilbo jolted from his reverie, just about jumping out of his skin and causing Ori to startle just as badly in the process. He twisted quickly on his feet, searching that voice out, eyes widening into what was no doubt a ridiculous, gaping expression as he caught sight of the Dwarf just as another familiar voice called from the stable, causing Thorin to scowl, glaring in that direction like his look alone could set the place on fire.

Thorin looked…

Thorin looked…

Valar bless, Thorin looked _alive_.

It was stupid. That was so stupid, but he did. Thorin looked alive, whole and hale, and that sudden realization twisted in Bilbo's gut with a fierce, hot hurt.

Bilbo had known Thorin was alive, of course he did. Well, he'd known that if he was sane, then Thorin must be alive. He'd known when he'd laid eyes upon Nori, and then Dori, and then Ori, each of them a growing promise that he was not mad, that he could not be. The land holding the same roads and landmarks promised him. The gates of Thorin's Halls promised him. He was sane, and so his Dwarves were alive and bustling around Ered Luin, living their lives. So obviously Thorin would be too.

But Bilbo had spent eighty years under the weight of Thorin's death. Almost another thirty wondering at Thorin's existence, and hoping. Wanting.

And here he was, real as… real as life, streaked in dirt, sweat glistening on his skin and soaking the thin shirt beneath his typical heavy tunic, like he'd spent the better part of the morning shifting some cargo or other. His hair was pulled back into a ponytail, even his braids, and his sleeves rolled up to reveal hairy, tattooed arms.

Bilbo had never seen Thorin looking so relaxed. Not once. He'd seen just about every other emotion cross Thorin's sharp features—disdain, hope, fury, madness, regret, and more besides—but not this perfect sense of casual comfortableness, irritable over whatever his partner in the stables had shouted, but still accomplished, finished with a long task during a normal day.

Like he belonged here, in Ered Luin. Like this place, however imperfect, gave him a sense of _home_.

As Bilbo continued to stare, Thorin's companion sauntered out of the stable doors. Of course it was Dwalin. Didn't Bilbo think that voice was familiar too? Dwalin fell in step with Thorin, who continued to frown at the building as Dwalin spoke to him, too quiet and too far away to hear.

Whatever Dwalin said had Thorin turning away, and as he turned Bilbo was sure his gaze fell on Bilbo himself, gaping at the Dwarf like a complete fool.

Ori rescued him, however unwittingly, nudging him in the side firmly enough to cause Bilbo to shift away, turning to his friend. "Are you alright?"

Bilbo quickly looked back toward Thorin, but he'd already vanished back into the mountain.

Bilbo's mind told him to follow, quickly. To not lose sight of the Dwarf. To speak to him. But his feet were rooted to the ground, refusing to move. Besides, what would he say? _So sorry to chase after you, Thorin Oakenshield, and you don't know me, but we're old friends and I'd like to hold you for a moment—to make sure you're real, you understand._ No, best leave _that_ meeting for another day, thank-you.

"Bilbo?" Ori touched his arm, concern lacing his voice.

"I'm fine, Ori. Just… just fine." Bilbo patted the hand on his arm, albeit blindly and more than a bit absently. "Indeed I just might be."

And yet, Bilbo could not stop watching the space where Thorin had vanished. "Now there's a lovelier sight still," he murmured to himself, not quite minding Ori's presence at his side. "Far too long missing."


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for the delay, everyone! My life was crazy for awhile, and when I had time to write this story decided to fight me tooth and nail. But I think I've got it where I want it to go, and I hope you enjoy! The next chapter will be up in the next couple of days too, and thank you to everyone who has stuck with this. <3
> 
> There is one Khuzdul word in this chapter, so for everyone's convenience: if you hover your cursor over the word, the translation will pop up. For everyone reading on mobile devices, the translation is in the end notes. I'll do my best to make this the standard procedure going forward. :)

The thing about being Ori was he was pretty much invisible.

Ori wondered about that sometimes, why so few people noticed him. Part of it was being the youngest brother, and with Dori and Nori as the older brothers no less. They were both strong personalities, and sometimes the only way of dealing with said personalities was to be the quiet one.

Part of it was being a scribe and librarian and historian. None of those things lent themselves to loud qualities. Two of the three required quiet ones! Had anyone in the history of book-safekeeping heard of a noisy librarian? That is, when said librarian wasn't defending their stacks? Had anyone heard of an obtrusive scribe? Ori would bet gold that no one ever had, and he was good at weighing the odds, thanks to Nori's lessons and his own good old-fashioned common sense. As for scribe-work, it was enough to say that one didn't make it as a scribe by being heard; to be good at the job, a Dwarf had to be quick and observant, not loud.

All that being said, it was a pain sometimes, not being noticed by most. And those who did see him usually wrote him off pretty quick as Dori's little brother—the shy one, not the outlaw. People labeled too easily, even Dwarrows, who, Ori thought, given their history, should ought to know better by now. Others didn't see his humor, or his slyness, or his strength, because that didn't fit his picture.

Bilbo _saw_ him. He watched Ori, and Ori knew it because he watched Bilbo right back. When they talked, Bilbo heard what Ori didn't say, and when he didn't know something, he asked questions until Ori was tired of talking, which was never. Bilbo was interesting. Bilbo was… peculiar, but in a good way. Not a lot of people were like that, both interesting and interested.

Still, it _was_ dead useful, being unseen. It was exactly the requirement for Ori's interests—mainly, his work. It made him a good librarian, and a better scribe. Best of all, it gave Ori the choicest gossip in the whole mountain. Even Nori didn't hear some of the things Ori did, too busy being on the wrong side of the law. People either didn't see Ori, or they trusted him, because Ori was sensible, and he didn't go around working his jaw. People talked around him.

Like now.

"Balin, a word," King Thorin called to his advisor as the others shuffled out of the meeting hall. Balin stopped packing away his agenda and seated himself once more, nodding to the king as the king himself leaned against the conference table. King Thorin wasn't known for his excessive patience, and he was already frowning at the lords and merchants filing out of the room; though whether it was impatience at them or at whatever he wished to discuss was anyone's guess.

Ori was still sitting along the wall, along with two other scribes, all of them putting their kits away: travel desk, papers, scrap paper for idle notes, an endless supply of inks and quills. He carefully clipped the evening's notes together and set them to the side to be added into the official records later. He made no rush of his work, though Frith and Ceeri both picked up their pace. If the king and Lord Balin wished for Ori and the others to leave promptly, they would tell them so. Neither of them were so unobservant as to miss the scribes.

"I've had word of an unusual guest in our halls," King Thorin mused once the door to the room clicked shut behind the merchants. Ori startled, and was glad he'd not been holding anything that would rattle at a jump. Did the king mean..?

Lord Balin's beard twitched, his eyebrows quirking up. "Would this be the Halfling Dwalin made mention of a handful of days ago? He said you made note of it then, though he hadn't seen the lad himself."

So it was about Bilbo. Ori slowed his movements just enough so he could linger, though the other scribes were nearly packed up. What did the king want to discuss about his friend? Ori couldn't see why it should matter, but that didn't stop every Dwarf under the mountain looking at Bilbo askance.

King Thorin snorted. "Dwalin was dawdling in the stable. He could have missed a warg stampede without noticing a thing."

Lord Balin hummed thoughtfully. "A Halfling in the mountain is an odd event," he allowed, "but nothing so great as to cause concern."

The king didn't speak for a long while, and Ori was finding it hard to find ways to linger—Ceeri was already slipping away toward the doors, Frith getting ready to stand. Ori gave a silent sigh as he slowly slotted the last of his quills into place.

"But what is he doing here?" The king finally demanded. Ori jerked up, wondering if the king meant him, but he was glowering at Lord Balin like he should know the answers. Ori couldn't quite stop his fleeting grin at the sight. When Lord Balin didn't offer up any answer, the king grumbled, "No, not a _concern_ , but strange, is it not?"

"Yes," Lord Balin agreed, not pointing out he'd already said it was odd, and Ori admired his tact. Lord Balin ever flowed with wisdom and discretion—and cunning too, when it came down to it. Ori couldn't help aspiring to be exactly like him. Frith finally left, shooting Ori a questioning look as he stood. Ori flicked his fingers at him: _go, I'll be along_.

"However," Lord Balin was saying, "I am given to understand this Halfling has arrived legally, signing into our books, accounting for his work."

"He's _working_ here?" King Thorin snapped, and Ori didn't know whether it was more with irritation or disbelief, but it was his cue to go. He quickly slotted the ink bottles into their leather case, clicked his desk close with barely a noise, and stood, slipping along the length of the wall toward the door as quickly as manners allowed.

"Indeed he is," Lord Balin sounded positively pleased. "In fact—Ori, lad, do stay."

Ori froze, and turned only reluctantly to find lord and king alike watching him. He tilted a quick, awkward bow. "Your Majesty. My Lord. May I be of service?"

Balin smiled, not unkindly, and waved him closer, all the while the king looked on with his renowned poker face. Nori often muttered how it was a shame to waste such a face on a king, since a thief could make much better use of it. Nori didn't _say_ 'thief,' but that's what he meant. Ori could read between those lines as easily as breathing.

"This Halfling is working for your brother, is he not, Ori?"

"Which—" the king began, casting a suspicious glance between them, and Ori almost sighed. _Almost sighed_ in front of the _king_ ; Dori would twist his beard if he knew it. Why did Nori have to make himself so well renowned as a "suspicious character," as the guards said, to the point even the king knew his name—and his family?

"Our finest textile merchant, naturally. Dori, son of Adri," Lord Balin interrupted smoothly and without a care, as if he wasn't interrupting their ruler. Ori really did admire him so, though he was quite sure he could never do such a thing himself. He cast a look to Ori.

Ori resisted the urge to bow again. "Mister Baggins has signed on as Master Dori's accountant, my lord. Er. Balin, sir."

Lord Balin was courting Ori as a prospective apprentice, and they'd nearly come to terms, particularly now that Ori could commit to Balin's schedule, being home from Dori's spring and summer travels—travels which he would have to abstain from for the foreseeable years, if he became Lord Balin's apprentice. It was quite an honor for the lord to be considering Ori at all, but he did insist on the most awkward things, like calling him Balin instead of using his title, or even a proper 'Master Balin'!

Ori would swear the king was hiding a smile as he turned away to cough. He felt his neck warm under his scarf, and was thankful nobody could see it.

"Accountant?" Lord Balin's thick eyebrows arched up.

"Dori's had some trouble finding an accountant suitable to his standards, sir," Ori said. "Mister Baggins meets them."

"Funny that a Halfling should meet your brother's requirements when no Dwarf in the Halls should suit," the king remarked.

Ori didn't know if it was meant as an insult or not, but he puffed up in familial pride anyway. "Dori is exacting about some things, and Mister Baggins is able to accommodate his requirements." He frowned, more to himself than at the lords. "He says he's often done accounts for all sorts of family records, and has gained his experience that way even though Hobbits do not have masteries as we do. And calling them Halflings is terribly offensive," he added, recalling Bilbo's explanations of it. It was just then that he realized he'd scolded a king— _his_ king. His eyes widened. "I—that is. I did not mean—my apologies, my lords… That is, I wasn't—"

"Peace, Ori." Lord Balin waved him off, though the king was back to watching Ori with that startlingly blank countenance. "So your brother's accountant is working out well?"

Ori beamed despite himself and his company, as much from relief over surviving his blunder as his happiness over Bilbo's friendship. Dori would simply be furious at his lack of decorum if he found out. "It's only been a few days home, but yes. Bilbo—Mister Baggins, that is, he likes it here a lot, and he tells the best stories about his people's history—he's a bit of a scholar, like me—and he _is_ a good accountant. Dori's pleased with his work on the summer books, and he and Dori have been discussing reorganizing the shop's records."

The king was watching him attentively. "There is nothing suspicious about him, this Halfling—this Hobbit interested in our mountain?"

"Only if you count his interest in travel, sire," Ori said earnestly. "He's a bit odd, but terribly friendly leastways."

King Thorin nodded, like he thought something of Ori's opinion. Ori felt his neck flush warm again, though the king likely nodded at all his subjects that way.

"There is nothing odd in his… scholarly pursuits?" The king asked. "No prying into our private affairs?" What he really meant by _private affairs_ , Ori knew, was _Khazad secrets_.

Ori blinked owlishly, genuinely startled by the king's question. "No?" he said, and could have kicked himself for how uncertain his voice was when he wasn't uncertain at all.

"Not as far as I've seen, my lord," Ori added as he thought back over his conversations with Bilbo, the lords not interrupting him, giving him time to collect his thoughts. "He's asked after the library's offering of Westron books, nothing more. And he's asked about my family, since he travelled with us and all, and about the Halls, but he's not pried when we can't answer." Not that _that_ happened over often, now that he thought about it.

As curious and interested in knowledge as Bilbo was, he rarely asked questions that they couldn't answer. It wasn't terribly noticeable until it was brought to Ori's attention—it wasn't like Dwarrows had so many secrets and outsider couldn't help blundering into them in every other conversation. But Bilbo never stumbled into those secrets, like he already knew they were there.

Ori thought over Bilbo more, all of Bilbo's peculiar moments, his friendly manner and the way his eyes sometimes grew distant like he was remembering some other time or person. The way he'd watched King Thorin out by the stables, like he'd seen a ghost out of memory.

But all of those instances were not things Ori was sure he wanted to share, especially when he didn't know what they meant himself. He liked to understand things before he went around sharing theories, if he wanted to go around gossiping about Bilbo at all, and he wasn't all that sure he did. Bilbo was terribly nice, and sometimes he looked so lost, and sometimes he looked at Ori's family like he'd found the greatest treasure—and Ori's instincts told him Bilbo meant it, too.

"He's odd," Ori reaffirmed, deciding to keep his observations to himself, at least for now. "He said he's unusual by Hobbit standards too, that Hobbits don't like traveling. But he hasn't behaved terribly strangely aside from… from _being_ here, and it's hard to find fault with him _liking_ us." It wasn't a very good explanation in how Bilbo was unusual, but he didn't know how to explain it better than that without revealing his observations.

The king made an aborted disagreeable, irritated sort of noise, but Lord Balin chuckled before asking, "Does Master Dori trust him as well?"

Ori shook his head, not in negation, but because it seemed like Lord Balin would know better than that, as often as he kept company with Dori. "Dori trusts him enough to let him work for him, but you know how he is. He's suspicious of everyone barring Mahal himself." He tapped his boot a little at using their Father's name in such a casual manner, not able to shake off a lifetime of superstition, no matter how some Dwarrows cursed Mahal's name with nary a rumble of the Maker's retribution.

"Mahal and yourself," Lord Balin amended, his beard twitching in a smile. He glanced toward the king, who tilted his head, looking discontent. "Thank you, Ori, for speaking with us. You may go, as I'm sure you'd like to finish your work and retire home before the midnight bell."

Ori bowed, stepping backward toward the door quickly. "Thank you, sir, Your Majesty."

"Ori," the king called to him as he reached the door. "If you or your brother sees anything suspicious, inform Master Balin of it. Keep an eye on him."

"Y-yes, sire," Ori squeaked. He slipped out the door, and when it was safely closed behind him he paused to collect his thoughts. Mahal bless, but the king himself was interested in Bilbo? Dori was going to love that.

~*~

Dori leveled a cool glare at the storeroom door as it slid open just enough for Nori to slip through. His hair was thankfully in its proper style, but he had a dark cloak thrown over head and shoulders, and Dori's scowl deepened minutely.

"I asked you to dredge yourself up from the depths of your cesspool of acquaintances because Ori said he had some family news regarding Mister Baggins," Dori informed Nori as soon as the door was closed behind him. "But don't think I'm best pleased about it."

Nori rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, noted." He cast a glance at Ori, and looked pointedly around the storeroom. "What news? Why are we meeting like," he grinned broadly, "what's that phrase… Thieves in the night?"

Dori grumbled low beneath his breath, shoulders going stiff.

Nori's smirk broadened. "Something with our Hobbit, you said? Explains why we're tucked out of sight and hearing in this forsaken storage room of yours."

"Stuff it," Dori growled. "Let Ori speak his piece without sticking your foot in it first, for once."

Ori took that as his cue, clearing his throat deliberately before Nori could quip back and start a shouting match. Bilbo had gone up to bed—muttering about the wretchedness of so many stairs about the mountain the whole way, much to Ori's endless entertainment—but a fight would surely wake him. Nori and Dori never communicated quiet.

"You know I was on the scribes' roster for this week's meeting with the lords?" Ori prompted, even though his brothers both doubtlessly knew about it; Dori because Ori had told him, Nori because he liked to use his questionable talents to keep tabs on his brothers. "After the meeting, King Thorin and Lord Balin remained behind, discussing Bilbo's arrival in the Halls, and they asked me about him." He was careful to skate past the part where he'd lingered to eavesdrop. Nori might find it hilarious, but Dori would be furious.

"What did they speak of?" Dori asked, voice tight. Ori wondered if he was thinking about the scandal of being in the king's sights, or the indignity of having his judgment questioned over inviting Bilbo into the Halls. Both, in all likelihood.

Ori dutifully recounted the lords' conversation.

"Well, they would've pegged him for odd as soon as they met him." Nori shrugged. "And Balin prob'ly considers it his job to be suspicious of everything that moves and isn't a royal bootlicker. Nothing to concern ourselves with."

"Nothing to concern ourselves with!" Dori mimicked, outraged. "We brought the lad here. He's our responsibility. I'm not going to stand by and let them question his honor and throw him out of the mountain like some never-do-well." He was too indignant to even call Nori out on his dreadful manners.

"You just like him because he'll do the shop's books without haggling the fee," Nori taunted.

"Room and board and a wage seems very fair to _me_ ," Dori snapped back. "And he's good at it."

Ori nodded along, trying not to reveal his relief that his brothers had so easily distracted themselves from the discussion at hand. He didn't want to outright lie to them, but he was still mulling over his observations of Bilbo, and he wasn't ready to dredge it all up.

It was typical, then, that his brothers were too stubborn to let the subject drop so easily.

"Watch him, you said?" Dori mused after he won the brief glaring contest with Nori—Nori had rolled his eyes, and so forfeited, like always. "For signs of, what was it?"

"Snooping," Ori said gloomily. "Bilbo's not the sort to be so underhanded!"

"We don't know anything much about him," Nori cautioned. "He's just as likely here for secrets as he is for, what was his explanation? An un-Hobbit-like interest in travel?" He snorted. "There's something sinister in it all, mark me."

Dori scoffed. "You only think so because you don't know what Mister Baggins' secrets are. Honestly, Nori, you're the worst at judging people that I have ever seen! That alone makes me trust him—more than I'd trust you, for certain. He was honest to the last ounce about your theft of his belongings."

Ori groaned. "How could you, Nori?" As if he hadn't already heard the story from Dori, Bilbo, _and_ Nori half a dozen times on the way to the Halls, each of them with a different perspective of the whole affair.

"And that ain't peculiar in itself?" Nori pointed out. "Have you ever met anyone so bloody honest and, all things considered, forgiving?"

"Isn't," Dori corrected, his tone conveying every single syllable of the 'I raised you to speak well, and so help me you _will_ ' speech he pulled out whenever he was feeling particularly tried over Nori's behavior. "He wouldn't need to be so forgiving if you had better judgment than to rob every other fellow on the street," he said with a fierce look. Then his shoulders dropped, and he ran a distracted hand along his beard braids, absently checking that everything was in order as he considered. "Mister Baggins is unusually friendly, as it happens. Travelling merchants aren't often so well regarded."

"Ya mean Dwarrow merchants _ain't_ ," Nori corrected.

Dori ignored him with nothing more than a frown. "You'd almost think we were old friends sometimes, the way he acts with us, when he has no good reason to trust us at all." At the last he threw another dark look at Nori, not soon planning to forget Nori's less savory traits.

It was Nori who ignored Dori's baiting this time, brushing off the look with an acknowledging grunt. "Yeah, precisely that. It's like he knows us, and why should he?" He looked properly displeased, and Ori knew it was because he was agreeing with Dori more than anything. Nori hated that.

"Not that I plan to mark Mister Baggins for nothing more than being a kindly, forgiving sort," Dori said firmly. "There are worse things to be."

Nori rolled his eyes extravagantly, looking ready to start up on what an easy touch Dori was—another of their many ancient arguments—when Nori's keen eyes landed on Ori, and Ori inwardly cringed. He'd been so close to escaping this meeting with nothing more complicated that another fight between his older brothers.

"Ori," Nori said, and Dori's hawk-eye gaze immediately fell on him too. "You've been awfully quiet."

Dori breathed in sharply, and Ori knew from that sound alone that they were on to him. His shoulders ducked up around his head instinctively, as if he could duck out of view or sink into the floor and not be caught, before he scolded himself and forced his shoulders straight and stared back at his two nosy older brothers. He was never going to get them to treat him like an adult if he hid every time they picked at him.

"It's nothing," he said, and miracles were clearly happening this night, for both his brothers rolled their eyes at once, both in agreement that Ori was lying, and doing it terribly. Two shared opinions in as many minutes? The world was ending.

"Ori," Dori warned.

At the same time, Nori said, "Just spit it out, since you're goin' to eventually anyway."

Ori made a face at Nori, but he sighed in resignation. "I don't know what it means," he cautioned, and the others nodded their acceptance, because they'd spent a lifetime knowing Ori's idiosyncrasies, and he hated positing a theory he wasn't certain of.

"I think Bilbo has known Dwarrows before—perhaps even Longbeards," Ori said tentatively. "When we were stabling the ponies, when we arrived home? He saw King Thorin across the yard, and he went _amrâdul_. I thought he would faint."

"You think he knows the king?" Dori said skeptically.

"No-o," Ori said slowly. "I don't see how he could… but he knows Dwarrows," he persisted. 

"He's unusually familiar with our ways, ain't he?" Nori said, thoughtful. "I've been wonderin' something like that." Ori was wondering about that too, but he didn't offer that tidbit to his brothers. It required more research, and he still wasn't sure he liked prying into Bilbo's business. Best cover the basics and leave the rest for the future.

" _Isn't_. You didn't say anything," Dori griped.

"I ain't sure." Nori grinned cheerfully when Dori scowled at him. "In seriousness, I've wondered, but it doesn't add up right."

Ori huffed quietly. "It adds up more than anything else, as far as I can tell."

"It seems likeliest," Dori said, tone heavy with doubt even as Nori shrugged noncommittally. "Putting aside Mister Baggins' past, we come back around to whether or not he's suspicious. I think I've made my piece clear: I trust him enough, for the moment. He's a nice fellow, when it comes down to it, and so long as he keeps out of trouble there's no harm in his being here."

Ori nodded eagerly, and Nori shrugged again, all lazy disinterest designed to irritate Dori as much as possible without using words.

It worked, because Dori's jaw clenched, but all he said was a slightly less-than-calm, "Very well then. Let's keep an eye on him like we've done all along, and the king may keep his own counsel. You may be off, Nori, back to whatever unpleasant business you had your fingers in before deigning to join a family meeting. The rest of us have sleep to catch before an honest day's work."

Nori, much to Ori's relief, just snickered as he slipped from the storage room once more, flipping a rude gesture to them in Iglishmêk as he headed back into the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Khuzdul (huge thanks to the Dwarrow Scholar):  
>  _amrâdul_ \- pale as death; literally "death-like"


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Tag Warnings have been updated! Added tags: PTSD, mentions of disturbing imagery._ I really suck at tags, so I'm probably being overly cautious, and I _think_ the references in this chapter are pretty mild, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. If you have triggers, **please be safe**. Anyone can [message me on tumblr](http://kaavyawriting.tumblr.com/ask) for info on the chapter. :)  
> 

The mountain was grand, grander than anything Bilbo could ever have imagined. The halls spanned vast distances and unending heights, climbing higher and higher beyond his sight. The ornate stairs and filigree-thin bridges were endless, weaving up and down, under and over.

All was lit with a red-golden glow, the gleam of burnished metal, of vast forges, of fire.

Everything about the echoing halls was so far past Bilbo's experience that he couldn't have found the words to describe it even if he wished to. If asked, all he would think to say on the matter was it was rather pretty, yes, but a touch too warm for his tastes. That heat had to be the forges. Dwarves always seemed to be busy cleverly creating one thing or another. But no one had asked, and the uncomfortable warmth was far from the first concern on his mind.

Bilbo could not find Thorin. Or was it his ring? Frodo? No, no, it was Thorin.

Bilbo patted his pockets absently as he started up another staircase—or should he be heading down? He paused, foot caught midair in indecision. But he couldn't change course _now_. If he went about it willy-nilly he would become lost sooner than he found anyone. He stepped down.

The step gave under his weight, softer than stone should be, and Bilbo glanced down only to glance down a second time and stare properly. Well, that would explain it, wouldn't it? He shook his head at the Dwarf beneath his foot, the Dwarf's helmet and large grey beard disguising most of his face, but undoubtedly dead if the pallor in his cheeks was anything to go by. He shook his head again, frowning severely.

"Don't you know we've reclaimed the gold? This is hardly the time to be lying around," Bilbo scolded.

The Dwarf did not move.

"We've much to do!" Bilbo said again, sharper, but the Dwarf lay still as stone.

Typical, to Bilbo's mind. They'd only just managed to reclaim Erebor by the skin of their teeth, and what did everyone do? Lie around, and while Thorin was missing too. Well, Bilbo would have to manage it all himself, wouldn't he?

Bilbo huffed his irritation and stepped over the Dwarf, climbing the rest of the stairs, only to find each step was another Dwarf, one after another like a mockery of soldiers standing at attention.

Bilbo reached the next landing with a cry of frustration. "What is the matter with the lot of you? You should rejoice!" He looked back to them, hoping they would move, only to find they had shriveled away into black, charred remains. Bilbo shivered and looked away, instinctively patting his pockets again as he determinedly stared down another hallway.

For all the golden glow and increasingly unbearable heat, the halls were dismayingly dark, quiet as a tomb. Bilbo glanced back to the bodies on the stair. Perhaps tomb was more on the nose than he liked. He turned down another darkened hallway, quickening his step with every quickening heartbeat. Was that a glimpse of glowing gold at the end of the interminably long hall or were his eyes playing tricks on him now?

"Perhaps just finally," he grumbled, and picked up his pace toward the light. Thorin would be there, among all that treasure. Wasn't he always?

At the end of the hall stood an impossibly thick stone door, light leaking out from between webbed cracks running its length. Bilbo put all his weight into shifting it and still it opened just barely enough for him to squeeze through. The heat of the room almost drove him right back out, sweat breaking out across his brow.

But Bilbo had to find Thorin. He patted down his vest before pushing his way onward. Below him, Erebor's treasures lay in a mockery of mountains, spanning the endless hall. At the center of it all was the target of his search.

"Thorin!" Bilbo cried, immediately clapping a hand over his mouth. Too much noise would mean death, he was certain of it, though he could not quite remember why. He made his way down into the treasure, careful of every step, flinching and freezing in place every time a coin shifted and chimed beneath his feet. He crept up to a too-familiar burial stone.

"Thorin," Bilbo hissed. He wasn't supposed to wake him—couldn’t wake him—but he had to. He didn't know how Thorin could sleep through the glow of the coins and the intolerable heat anyway. The treasure hall was so hot, and in the corners of his eyes a great red beast flamed in the shadows, all fire and patient malevolence.

He reached out gingerly, grasping Thorin's arm, icy chainmail biting into his fingers, and shook him. "Thorin, you must wake," he whispered, urgency clawing across his skin.

Relief flooded him when Thorin's eyes fluttered open, and he shook the king's shoulder a little harder. Thorin was warm to the touch too, burning beneath the skin, and wasn't that odd? Shouldn't he be cold? His clothing felt like ice. He'd died on ice, his blood flooding into the River Running like an offering to Mahal. He should be cold. Bilbo should be cold.

Thorin sat up.

Bilbo tightened his grip on Thorin's wrist. "Good. Good. I've been looking everywhere for you!"

Thorin did not speak, though he looked down upon Bilbo from the height of his burial pier. It was all Bilbo could do not to fidget. Why was he here? He'd needed something… something important.

Bilbo's free hand patted his vest, and his mind lit with purpose. That was it. "Have you seen my ring? I've misplaced it somewhere." His hand continued patting his pocket, like the motion alone would return the ring to its proper place.

Thorin's too-pale face looked upon Bilbo as if he didn't recognize him. After a too-long minute that ate at Bilbo's nerves, a frown marred Thorin's mouth.

"The Arkenstone," the king said, but it was wrong. The voice was not his own.

Anxiety was increasing within him like tremors, like the earth shaking away into nothing beneath his feet. "This is not the time," he hissed, but something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong, and the Dwarf before him… wasn't.

It wasn't Thorin, it couldn't be Thorin.

Bilbo blinked, but Thorin did not dissolve away. He continued staring down at him.

"I… we must go, Thorin," Bilbo said weakly. "Don't you feel this terrible fire around us? Something is not right."

Thorin's frown deepened into familiar stubbornness, something like gold gleaming deep in dark eyes. "My stone, Burglar."

"You're not… you're not right," Bilbo said, fear giving way to hollowness at the heart of him. Everything was fire and gold, they were burning, the fire creeping out from the corners of the room like some stalking predator, and it was too late. Everything was too late.

Bilbo patted his pockets.

"Thorin," Bilbo tried again, quieter; there was no reason to disturb the dead if he didn't need to. "I can save us. I can. But I need to know—"

What did he need to know? He'd just had it, he had. Bilbo finally let go of Thorin's arm, frozen fingers pressing to his forehead, as though his will alone could jog his memory. His eyes closed with thought, his brow scrunching in concentration.

"What do I need?" Bilbo asked. "What do I need to do?" He looked back to Thorin, but the king had lain back down when Bilbo hadn't been looking. He did not answer. Thorin was asleep.

"No. No, no, no." Bilbo caught Thorin's wrist, shook him again. When the Dwarf didn't respond, he scrambled up onto the stone, fingers catching in the fur of Thorin's surcoat. "Wake up. I can't do this alone."

Bilbo yanked on the coat. "Thorin! Tell me what to do. I can't—you must wake."

The golden light of the treasure dimmed, the gleaming red of fire falling over every coin, every gem. It was too hot, everything burned to the touch. Or was he burning everything else?

Darkness moved against the shadows, and Bilbo did not dare to turn and look.

"We will burn," he whispered to Thorin. "I can't do this alone."

He was too late.

"Thorin, wake up."

He was always too late.

"Wake up!"

His fingers touched his empty pockets.

" _Wake up!_ "

~*~

Bilbo woke up, a cry on his lips as disjointed fears jostled and jumbled together in a mockery of memories.

Hands gripped his shoulders, and it took Bilbo a disoriented second to recognize it was a Dwarf leaning over him and not one of his Elf friends—he knew it was not his parents, because the shadow was too broad. It took him another minute to remember he hadn't technically met any Elves yet.

"Nori," Bilbo said, taken aback by the roughness of his own voice, and his jaw clicked shut around the babbling that wanted to escape, teeth aching from the force of it.

Nori held his shoulders firmly, but gently enough to keep from bruising, and he didn't seem ready to let go in a hurry. "You dreamt—nightmare would be more apt, 'course, but nightmared s'not a word," he said, voice lending itself toward the more amiable side of neutral.

More awareness slipped into Bilbo's muddled mind as the waking world drove the dream a little further away, to a distance that felt a little less real. He forcibly unclenched his jaw. "Nightmared's a good word."

Bilbo shivered, and realized he was damp with sweat. Maybe he'd dreamt of fire because his room was a tad stuffy. He flinched at the memory of heat and shadow pressed against his back, a fire that he could not see licking at his heels. He recoiled as the sight those poor nameless Dwarves beneath his feet flashed through his mind, of Thorin-who-was-not staring at him with dead eyes. None of it was real: a mockery, a parody of his past. Yet all of it was a little too close for comfort. He feared such dreams, some ill thing caught between memory and terror.

Nori squeezed his shoulders, fingers digging into Bilbo's flesh hard enough to drag his mind back to the present. When Nori was sure he had Bilbo's attention he released him and moved back, sitting on the chair beside the little desk Dori had scrounged up for Bilbo's room. There was the scratch and hiss of a match lighting, and Bilbo watched Nori put the flame to an oil lamp, casting the tiny room in bright relief.

"Quite some nightmare," Nori remarked, for all the world like he was commenting on the weather.

"Quite," Bilbo agreed, and shivered from the quickly chilling sweat sticking his nightshirt to his skin. They stared at each other, sizing each other up.

"Want to talk about it?" Nori asked.

"Not really," Bilbo said at once, perhaps a little too quickly, determined to say nothing at all on the matter. His past was his own business, and he knew Dwarves above all would respect his desire to hold his secrets close. Besides, he couldn't tell them. What would come of it? They would think him mad, and he wasn't entirely sure they'd be wrong in doing so.

"Usually helps Ori, is all," Nori said.

"My parents always listened too." Bilbo nodded agreeably, and kept silent.

Nori grimaced at being compared to a parent. Bilbo was too shaken to be amused over his friend's discomfort.

"Well, so. If that's that, then I s'pose I'll be on my way." Nori made to stand. Bilbo realized with a jolt that he didn't want Nori to leave, even if talking about his nightmares wasn't a choice open to him.

"Fire," Bilbo blurted out, and tried not to reveal how dearly irritated he was with himself at the word. He didn't want anyone to know the horrors in his dreams, ones he never managed to stop. Bilbo couldn't even justify his nightmares, all of his fears grounded in a life that hadn't happened yet—would never happen if Bilbo had a say in it.

Nori sat back down, and Bilbo couldn't help noticing the little, satisfied gleam in the thief's eyes. He'd played right into the Dwarf's hands. But still, Nori was staying. Thank the Valar for small favors.

A pipe slipped into Nori's palm as if from thin air, and a little satchel of weed followed in short order. He didn't speak, for which Bilbo was grateful.

"I," Bilbo stopped, frowned down at his hands, which had begun fidgeting at his blanket without his notice. He didn't have the words to continue, not the right ones for a good lie _or_ the truth.

"You dreamt of fire," Nori said, his voice surprisingly soft, soothing in its calm matter-of-fact manner. Bilbo always could rely on Nori for stating things the way he saw them, a bluntness he must have learned from Dori, loath as Nori would ever be to admit it.

Bilbo nodded to his hands. "Fire," he agreed softly, looking back up at Nori, wondering if he looked as guilty as he felt. A guilt he wasn't rightly sure was his to bear—at least, Elrond had always told him as much—but bear it he did.

Something in Nori's eyes decided him, decided something Bilbo hadn't known was in consideration at all, and he continued speaking, couldn't have stopped if he'd tried. "And—and death, so much death. I could do nothing, no matter how I tried. I was a fool, and the worst sort: a perfectly useless one.

"It never really leaves, you know," Bilbo said to himself, under his breath, eyes slipping past Nori to distant cities of Dwarves and Men, of councils meant for kings and lords and wizards. Not for Hobbits, no matter how strong they were when fate knocked on their round door and demanded favors of them.

"Memories are like that." Nori leaned back in his chair, the weed now tamped down into his pipe and glowing cherry red, the stem caught between his teeth. "Particularly the bad."

Bilbo made a little noise of agreement, eyes still locked on the far wall, recalling Smaug's flame over Dale, of Bilbo's own hands scrabbling for a ring around his nephew's neck. His fingers clenched around the blanket over his lap, as if that would change his actions of old. "That feeling, it never goes away." Of failing, over and over. Of losing what he'd not even known he'd wanted—needed.

"No," Nori agreed.

Bilbo breathed out, as if expelling the memories with his very breath. It worked, for whatever magic the nightmare held dissipated from his mind, and Bilbo caught hold of himself once more. His gaze snapped back to the Dwarf, and though Bilbo had been talking to him the entire time, some part of him had quite forgotten Nori was there. That Nori was listening.

"They…" He watched Nori watching him, eyes too keen, too knowing. "They're not mine."

Nori's eyebrow ticked up.

Bilbo couldn't blame him, given he really couldn't explain what he meant by that lie anyway. Sometimes the babbling rubbish that fell out of his mouth astonished even him, even after all these years. "They're just dreams," he finished weakly.

Nori nodded agreeably, and they both knew he didn't believe a word of it.

Bilbo sighed. "Can I have a puff of that?" Nori handed over the white stone pipe easily, and the subtle carvings along the stem pressed into Bilbo's fingers as he took a long breath of smoke into his lungs.

They sat in silence and smoked, and it was only when Bilbo felt a little more like himself that he felt up to any further conversation. The only problem was, there was no taking back what he'd already said, and no way to know what Nori thought of it all, if he thought anything, without hinting around. And then Nori would surely know something was up. Best to let it lie, and distract Nori from his little confession if he could.

"What're you doing here anyway?" Bilbo thought to ask, tilting his head to indicate his little room across from Ori's. Bilbo was sure it used to be a storage closet before his arrival. Still, it was big enough for a bed just large enough to fit him, a chest for his belongings, a small desk, and two short shelves along the wall for his papers and trinkets, so Bilbo found it perfectly suitable to his needs. There were no pegs to mount any weapons on the walls, but then, Bilbo had no sword yet.

Nori's shoulder lifted in a noncommittal shrug. "Came around to see everyone settled. I'm off for a time, doin' all that Shady Business Dori's always capitalizing when he mutters about me." Bilbo grinned, and Nori grinned back when he caught sight of Bilbo's amusement. He shook his head. "You're an odd thing."

"Thanks ever." Bilbo snorted.

Nori shrugged again, lifting his pipe. "Fact's fact. A kind sort of odd, if you care."

Bilbo snorted again, and since he had nothing but halfhearted rebuttals to offer such irritating remarks, he changed the subject. "When will you finish your Shady Business then?"

"Sooner rather than later," Nori said vaguely. "Try not to get into too much trouble while I'm gone, aye? I'd hate to miss the party."

Bilbo rolled his eyes. "I'll try not to leave you out, but since you're more of a troublemaker than I am, I'd put my money on my missing all _your_ fun, not the other way around."

Nori looked him over skeptically. "A Hobbit in the mountain, doing books and being all _eccentric_? Want to put a real wager on that?"

Bilbo thought about it, and looked at Nori's gleaming gaze, and decided that perhaps he had a point. Instead of answering, he snatched Nori's pipe from him, taking a few puffs and ignoring the way the thief laughed.

"Like I said, try not to get in trouble while I'm off." He waited until Bilbo handed the pipe back, tamped the last leaf down until the embers died, and stood. He grinned down at Bilbo. "Need me to tuck you in, read a bedtime story?"

Bilbo scowled. "Sod off, Nori."

Nori sauntered out of Bilbo's room, snickering all the way.

Bilbo huffed at the closed door, giving it an accusing glare as if it had any control over Nori's comings and goings, and slouched back down into bed. He grimaced as his damp, now chilly nightshirt brushed against his collarbone, sat up and quickly shucked it off over his head, and curled back down under his blanket.

Irritating as Nori could be, and as worried as Bilbo was at what he might have accidentally revealed, he felt oddly lighter. Certainly he would need to invest in a lock for his door, in the slim hopes that it might deter the thief, and at least stop any other intruders… But for tonight, Bilbo was comforted, and his nightmares and memories felt far away from him. Perhaps now he would sleep without dreaming.

~*~

Nori let himself out of Bilbo's room and headed down the hall to his room, rarely used though it was. He'd figured since he was up in the merchant quarter in the last hours of the night he might as well use the comfortable bed while he had it. He hadn't expected to hear their Hobbit … friend? Family accountant? Nori didn't even know what the little fellow was. All he knew for certain was he had secrets, and apparently they were grim ones.

No one deserved to sleep through nightmares like that, so Nori had slipped in to comfort him.

Fire. Death. Loss. That was the stuff of Bilbo Baggins' nightmares.

And he was peculiarly fond of Longbeards.

It was growing easier to put the pieces together, though Nori wasn't parsing them quite the way his brothers were. Sure, Bilbo could have known Dwarrows, it was possible. But he was young, if Nori judged him rightly. He could be no older than his majority, barely an adult, and though Nori didn't recall exactly when a Shireling came of age, he knew it was paltry in comparison to a Dwarf's majority. And yet...

Point two, Hobbits didn't care for outsiders any more than Dwarrows, so Dwarrows didn't travel into the Shire much, and even rarer still as far in as Hobbiton, if that was where Bilbo Baggins truly haled from. (And Nori would know that soon enough, no mistake.)

How would a young Hobbit living a sheltered Shire life have met Dwarrows? Even had he met Dwarf merchants traveling the East Road, why would he feel sympathetic toward Longbeards enough to travel to their stronghold?

Nori lived by his instincts. They were what kept him alive instead of dead in a smuggler's tunnel somewhere. Every instinct he had told him there was something wrong. Something much more complicated about their little Hobbit, and now Nori had an inkling of what that was.

It was farfetched, to be sure. Some would go so far to say it was mad, but Nori had seen madder. He'd dealt with the occasional Elf, and if those lot weren't barmy as anything, he'd cop to being a thief and swear himself to true and honest trade for the rest of his life.

Nori let himself into his room, his eye catching sight of the single hair snapping from its position on the inner doorknob, his little proof that no one had broken into his room with him unawares. He tossed his cloak to the side, stripped off his boots, and rolled himself into his blankets without bothering to disarm his half a dozen knives.

His ears remained alert for the subtle signs of life moving in the dark: bootsteps on the stone of the hall, Dori grumbling to himself as he readied for bed, Ori's soft muttering as he walked through life with words perpetually scrolling through his mind, the shallow breathing of an intruder trying to stay hidden, or the faint noises of a Hobbit slipping back into nightmares.

Nori would have to keep an eye on Bilbo Baggins. Just to test if his theory was true.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An update at long last! I don't know how I feel about this chapter, but I wanted to finally get it up! Enjoy? :)

Bilbo didn't honestly know how long he was going to remain in the Blue Mountains. If he was going to remain.

He'd begun this adventure to prove his sanity to himself—or to prove he was truly mad once and for all, like the gossips around Hobbiton sometimes whispered about when they thought him out of earshot. If madness could be proved, and Bilbo was not entirely sure it could. Perhaps he was mad, and could not tell precisely because of it. Perhaps he always would be, and was doomed to never realize.

Those were dark thoughts that teased the corners of his mind in the late hours before dawn, when nightmares kept sleep far from him. But Bilbo could not believe them, could not live his life that way. This was real. His life was real. It felt real, tasted real, smelled real. His doubts had been banished into those few hours of dawn, and Bilbo dearly wished to keep it that way. He had to trust himself.

Bilbo's travels had been meant as a little jaunt, nothing that lasted past the warm, kind months of summer… Or at worst, no longer than a late autumn homecoming.

But then… Nori happened.

Nori, Dori, and Ori one after the other, like leaves shaken loose in the wind.

Thorin happened, Dwalin at his heels.

How could Bilbo leave, when some of his most important memories, his most important friends, stood living before him? How could he return to the Shire, when this settlement of Dwarrows cradled his sanity and his _heart_ bundled up together? It was a funny knot of a problem: these people, this city protected him, and yet at once he knew he was meant to protect them. Could both sides be protected and protector at once, a mathematically impossible coin? (His Dwarves could figure out the math, Bilbo knew, if he asked. Most were nearly offensively good at it, especially the complicated theoretical bits. But he could hardly ask.)

Now, as it stood, Bilbo felt compelled to stay. He hadn't seen Fíli and Kíli yet, the brothers surely living in each other's pockets as much as they'd ever done on the quest.

Nor had he spotted Bofur, Bombur, or Bifur, but knowing the three of them, they were buried deep in the mountain, somewhere Bilbo could not follow. Bofur was a miner, after all, and spent months at a time in the deepest recesses, helping extract the last dredges of coal from the deep. Bifur was a miner by trade too, though Bilbo recalled he spent most of his time with his wood carving. And Bombur would not be far behind, his mastery in architecture being put to use shoring the unstable tunnels they needed to work.

Óin, at least, Bilbo could find with relative ease, the healer orbiting around the healing ward and its apothecary as he went about his duties. Glóin, too, who kept track of the mountain's funds, and spent his time investing his own capital into worthy prospects. (Valar blight them, Bilbo had never _heard_ of capital and short- versus long-term investments before the Dwarves—especially Glóin. Sure, Bilbo was a deft hand with his land's accounts and the related sundry. Rent, vineyards, farmland, and all, but it was not quite the same thing.)

If only all his Company would be half so easy to track down. Just to see them, just to make sure they were there and well. He didn't need to befriend them, to even speak to them, he just dearly needed to _see_ them.

They all had to be here. They _had_ to be: his mind had not led him wrong yet, despite his misgivings. Despite the trolls, and all the doubt that pursued him through the years.

Bilbo did not think he could leave the Halls without seeing them. All thirteen. His Company.

But if he was staying, well. Bilbo would need better funds and better prospects than one shop's accounts, and one little closet in Dori's home. Somehow, he would have to find work.

And write his parents before they worried, of course.

~*~

"Ori," Bilbo said, timing his question during one of Ori's pauses as the scribe put finishing touches on one of his scrolls. "Why does Dori trust me?" Bilbo couldn't keep the curiosity from his voice, having wondered about it for the month he'd been in the Halls.

Ori lifted his pen carefully from his page and set it aside before turning to stare at Bilbo. He looked genuinely puzzled, the ink-stain above his right eyebrow not helping, adding to the quizzical look on his face.

"Oh," Ori hemmed, then immediately paused, as if he didn't know how to organize his words. 

Bilbo waited it out, knowing Ori was sorting his thoughts into a shape that satisfied him. He occupied his time by pouring two fresh cups of tea from the stoneware pot that he and Dori kept in constant use in the back rooms of the shop. He fixed the first the way Ori liked it, with a spoonful of honey and a splash too much of milk. Then he added honey to his own, stirring until it dissolved as he ran his eye along the day's column of figures, doing the sums in his head and then doing them again, checking his work for the fourth time. The list of sales was short, but Dori said that was to be expected in the first weeks of their return, when the shop needed restocking, and the market was still quiet from the lull of summer travel.

Ori sipped his tea and snaffled up a couple of the biscuits that had survived teatime. He must have settled on his wording, for he said, quite bluntly, "Bilbo, Dori doesn't trust you."

Bilbo blinked at him. "But I live here?" he said, tentatively, not sure his point actually _was _one.__

__"He trusts you a _little_ ," Ori amended. He looked faintly apologetic, though whether it was about Dori's lack of trust or Ori's misrepresentation on Dori's precise level of trust, Bilbo couldn't say. He would put his money on the latter._ _

__"He doesn't trust anyone," Ori said in explanation. He waved ink-stained fingers vaguely. "I thought you knew. You know how Dori is."_ _

__"Well, yes," Bilbo allowed, because he _did_ know how Dori was. He liked to think he'd have picked up on that even if he'd really only known Dori a few weeks. He said again, "I do live here." At Ori's confused look, he elaborated, "I assumed—wrongly, I see—that it meant Dori trusted me. That's what I was asking, m'lad. Why should Dori trust me enough to allow me to live in his home?"_ _

__"Oh!" Ori brightened. "He does trust you a little." He said again, then hesitated, fingers curling snuggly around his tea and taking a long drink to stave off further explanations._ _

__Bilbo shook his head, exasperated and amused in equal measure. "Out with the rest then. I'm not going to be offended!"_ _

__Ori stopped mid-drink, staring at him over the rim of his cup like a startled deer. He set it aside with a sigh. "I suppose." His fingers were forced to fiddle around each other, with nothing else occupying his hands. "I think his thinking is if you're not to be trusted, what better place for you to be than right under our noses?"_ _

__That startled a laugh out of Bilbo. "Oh dear. I see. Very practical."_ _

__"Don't be offended?" Ori said hurriedly. "We do like you. I like you. _Dori_ likes you, he does."_ _

__"I don't doubt you, Ori. Nor am I offended. I suppose it is to be expected." Bilbo shook his head. "However, I can't help noticing, that's very underhanded of Dori."_ _

__Ori looked positively fretful, fingers finally lacing together properly just so he could wring his hands._ _

__"Very like Nori, I daresay," Bilbo added, finally unable to hide his amused smile._ _

__Ori's eyes widened, then he laughed, hands shooting up to cover his mouth. "Don't say that where Dori can hear!" he said, another giggle-snort escaping. "You'll be out on the street, and then how will we discuss the Wandering Days of Hobbits?"_ _

__Bilbo sipped his tea. "Now about that. Should you ever find yourself in the Shire, discussing Hobbit history, I'd be grateful if you kept those particular tales to yourself."_ _

__Ori frowned. "But—" He stopped abruptly, his quick mind catching onto Bilbo's meaning at once, and he positively gaped. "Are they sacred stories? _Bilbo_."_ _

__"History is meant to be shared," Bilbo said in answer. "But yes, Hobbits don't often discuss our history with outsiders. It's not forbidden precisely, but it's Not Done. It'd be quite the scandal back home if they knew I'd been going on about them." He eyed Ori's horrified stare with concern. "You're going to catch flies with your maw stuck open like that."_ _

__Ori's jaw clicked shut. He bit his lip, leaning out of his chair like they were whispering secrets between each other. "Will you get into trouble?"_ _

__"Bless! Nothing more than marring my reputation, which I suppose is bad enough, as my parents wouldn't care for it." Bilbo smiled encouragingly at him. "We'll keep the Wandering Days between us, I suppose? It's nice to discuss Hobbit history with someone who is genuinely interested after all."_ _

__"Are there no other historians in the Shire?" Ori asked. He seemed mollified with Bilbo's proposal, poised to pull out the notes he'd been making of their discussions._ _

__"Few indeed." Bilbo chuckled. "Why, Hobbits are more interested in family history than any other, and outsiders aren't interested at all! I can tell you to this day that my great-great-great grandmother was incandescent after her cousin's husband supposedly trampled her prized eggplants at a summer festival before the batch of eggplants were judged. Granted, she didn't witness it herself, but the festival gossip did point the collective finger straight to him. And that incident and consequent feud is the reason today why Bagginses and Boffin-Fairwells can't sit at table together without risking the china, the chairs, and everything in between for all the riotous debates. During one particularly eventful party even the meal wasn't safe," Bilbo concluded, and didn't try to hide his scandalized disbelief over the loss of a perfectly good supper. He had on good authority that three honey-glazed ducks had gone to waste, as well as an elaborately constructed marzipan and half a dozen different puddings._ _

__Ori boggled at him._ _

__"And cousin Felwin Boffin-Fairwell hadn't even won first prize. One dreads to think how history would have unfolded then." Bilbo laughed._ _

__"Oh!" Ori huffed. "You're having me on!"_ _

__Bilbo laughed more, but he shook his head earnestly. When he caught his breath enough to speak, he said, "No, no, I give my word, Ori. Shire feuds are dreadfully serious affairs. We take great care to start up a good spat over the least things."_ _

__They fell back into comfortable silence, Ori's pen scratching more frantically than it had before even as he shot occasional wide-eyed stares Bilbo's direction; the scribe had set his official papers aside, moving on to his collection of Hobbit notes._ _

__Bilbo fiddled with his own papers, eyes skimming over the figures he'd done and redone before he shuffled the accounting into its ledger and turned his attention to his own scratchings. He'd been making notes about the last few days, a habit of journaling he'd gotten into since he'd been a lad trying to sort out the mismatched memories in his head. He blinked down at the paper, eyes finally catching on the idle little doodles in the corner. He'd drawn the blade of Sting quite absently, and in another corner were the beginning angles of Thorin's motif, easily recognizable to Bilbo's practiced eye and, surely, to any Dwarf as well. Bilbo quickly slid a fresh piece of scrap paper over his notes, and decided to turn his attention to a different train of thought._ _

__"Ori," Bilbo said, trying not to fidget with his bits of paper, "Do you think Dori would be terribly put out if I picked up some extra work? Not that I wish to quit his accounts," he added quickly, "It's quite fine, you know, but it doesn't fill the hours as one might hope, and I'd like to poke around the market and see about offering my services. I'm a deft hand at plenty of odd jobs, if I say so myself." He looked toward Ori expectantly._ _

__Ori was still scribbling away, oblivious to the world._ _

__Bilbo's mouth quirked in a little grin. He shook his head. "Never mind then. I think my mind's quite made up regardless."_ _

__Ori looked up, startling at Bilbo's stare, and frowned, puzzled. "Did I miss something?"_ _

__"Nope." Bilbo waved him back to his work. "Not a thing. Did you have any questions about all those Hobbit notes you're jotting down?"_ _

__Ori brightened in a flash, frown melting to nothing. "Now that you mention it..! Hold on, hold on, I just had them..." He set his fresh notes aside, giving the ink time to dry, and shuffled through his older papers with astonishing speed, tongue poking out between his teeth in his concentration. He pulled a section of papers out with a triumphant "ha!" and proffered them to Bilbo._ _

__Bilbo took them, more gingerly than he'd ever admit, like he was about to wake a sleeping dragon, as his little saying went. The topmost paper was fill with row after row of tidy, cramped questions in Westron, the penmanship somewhat blockier than the average hand—Ori's natural inclination, when he wasn't stylizing a scroll._ _

__"These are, ah," Bilbo scanned through the four pages, "quite a lot of questions." He read through several, and added. "Very thorough."_ _

__"Not all for tonight," Ori said, tone a note sheepish. "I'm tinkering with the idea of a book on Hobbits. We don't have any, you know. Not a single chapter on Hobbits in the whole library. It'd be a good project to submit to my guild." He got a sharp gleam in his eye, and his relation to Dori and Nori grew quite clear in that one look. "We could write it together, Bilbo! It would be most accurate that way, and you've written books, haven't you?"_ _

__"I've dabbled," Bilbo demurred instinctively, immediately embarrassed over the little offerings he'd produced and put out into the—largely disinterested—world: slim volumes on gardening, a collection of the Shire's and Bree-land's fairy stories, translations of Elvish songs, and his own dabblings in song and poetry, among other sundry subjects. The fairy stories had been popular with the children at least, if not with many of the parents._ _

__Bilbo's red book, now that had been a good one, and more or less accurate as historical records went. Mostly._ _

__But that book was gone, no longer having been written at all, and Bilbo could hardly rewrite it. One never got the words down quite the same way twice after a work was lost, he'd found. Besides, not much of it was true anymore, and the only value to posterity it would hold would be to himself alone. If he were honest, Bilbo quite preferred it that way—the events of those tales would never come to pass if he had any say in the matter._ _

__Bilbo looked at Ori's expectant face, and smiled despite himself. "Oh all right, yes. We could put something of a History of Hobbits together." He couldn't help adding, a gleam in his eyes, "As long as we leave such stories as the Wandering Days out."_ _

__Ori squeaked a little, his sly glee melting into horror at the last remark. "I wouldn't, Bilbo, you've my solemn word!" Determination settled over his face, sharp as steel, robbing Bilbo's breath as he remembered that same fierce fire in the young scribe's eyes so many times from another life. Ori often looked a meek and mild fellow until something forced his steely will to the fore._ _

__"Only facts will go in our book, none of your secrets, and certainly no speculation!" Ori swore. "It will be the truest and most complete history of your people anyone has ever put down to paper."_ _

__Bilbo forced the thoughts of the past from his mind, smiling softly at his young friend. "My dear Ori, that would be true if we wrote a slim volume covering the barest facts, and made sure to get every other description wrong," he said drily, chuckling at Ori's scandalized look. He shuffled his papers, making sure any of his telling doodles were well and truly out of sight before setting them aside. "What should we make note of first?"_ _

____

~*~

Bilbo had been contemplating extra work for some days, but he didn't know how to go about it. He'd been lucky with Dori. He was often lucky in such things, and when it came right down to the reality of it, Bilbo didn't know how to go about it otherwise. Where did one go to find work? The prospect was a little overwhelming, for all that Bilbo was a perfectly capable adult who'd faced a great deal worse. He'd faced a dragon. He'd faced armies of orcs. He'd faced a Thorin who was dragon-mad and heartbroken. He'd faced his own failings more than a few time, come to that.

What was searching for work among the Halls of occasionally suspicious Dwarves in the face of all that?

Yet, it was undeniable that Bilbo was muddled and touch anxious over this new unknown.

Bilbo's whole life was a strange, head-muddling unknown. He knew what was to come, but he didn't. He _knew_ his own story, but he was rewriting it, and with each new sentence a fresh unknown was presented to him, a puzzle he had to solve correctly lest he scatter all the pieces he was trying to lay out into a worse mess.

It was overwhelming.

Bilbo breathed out. The outcome of his life did not rely on this, he reminded himself firmly. He was letting the future—the past?—catch him up, but he couldn't. He simply could not let it rule his every decision.

Some of them, certainly, but not all. Some choices Bilbo had to make for himself. As eager as he was to locate all of the Company, he was bored with nothing to throw himself into. He needed something to keep his mind busy. He wanted to occupy himself with all the Halls had to offer, explore a world he'd never gotten the chance to know before.

The last few days, since Bilbo and Ori began plotting out their Hobbit book, Bilbo had found himself wandering the marketplace between the short hours Dori's books required and evenings spent conspiring with Ori. The shops were by and large quiet still, most of them closed down while their owners traveled the world selling their wares. Only a small corner of the market had remained open for the permanent residents of Thorin's Halls, and it would be weeks yet before the rest of the merchants returned from their travels.

Dori was quite busy taking stock of his wares, old and new. He catalogued, tagged, and stocked all the cloth and sundry supplies he required, and readied orders he needed to make for the eventual return of the merchants he wished to barter with. Bilbo helped Dori where he could, but the Dwarf was too well organized to need much assistance, not until the market returned to full life. Bilbo couldn't even do much with the accounts now that he had everything in fine order.

Ori spent most of his days with his fellow scribes, moving from meeting to meeting to the scribes' offices, transcribing minutes, copying records, sending official notices, handling contracts. When he wasn't there, he was tailing Balin or working in the library, only arriving home before supper. Sometimes after, even, much to Dori's ire and Bilbo's dismay: growing Dwarves shouldn't miss supper, was their shared opinion.

With the Ri brothers so busy—Nori missing entirely, of course—and no fresh work on the horizon, Bilbo had little to occupy his time. He found himself wandering the mostly deserted marketplace, studying shops, wondering how to offer his services to their absent owners. Wondering if he would be at all useful.

Bilbo traced his fingers along a shop window, the delicate glass colored blue and green, framed with a geometric iron framework. He was fairly sure the shop belonged to a glassblower, though the sign on the door was nothing more than a clean line of cirth.

Bilbo was going to stay in the Halls for some months, he grew more certain of that with every passing day. Most like through winter, barring any unfortunate events. But he didn't know what to _do_. All his life, Bilbo had had the good fortune of, well, of having enough wealth to live comfortably, but regardless he had rarely spent his life _idly_ , all the less the older he grew. He was used to keeping busy. He missed it.

Bilbo passed the glassblower's silent shop with a sigh, trailing along to the next shop. Who could have known an adventure such as his would be overwhelming and dismally dull all at once?

He sighed again, a great, aggravated huff in and out, and if it weren't for such a deep breath he would never have caught the distant scent of yeast-laden bread. His belly rumbled. Bilbo paused in his third lazy stroll of the day through the quiet market. He was certain there was no bakery near this corner, or at least none that were open. They wouldn't have enough people to sell to this time of year.

Bilbo sniffed the air. Someone was assuredly baking somewhere, the rich scent of fresh bread baking in the oven growing stronger in the air with every passing minute.

_Bother these Dwarves,_ Bilbo thought to himself. _All their clever little vents and airshafts sending smells this way and that, how is a Hobbit supposed to know where to go?_

A nice snack sounded just the thing to clear Bilbo's head and put him back on the right track. Maybe the mysterious baker would be interested in a little distraction. Bilbo could certainly use a fellow friend interested in the art of cooking around the Halls.

Perhaps Bilbo could even offer his services. He was a decent cook—not the finest in the Shire, but nothing to sneeze at. He thought on the idea as he poked around the nearby shops, growing fonder of the notion with every passing second. He could certainly make himself useful in a kitchen, he was certain of it. That was, if he could find the blasted thing.

_And—there!_ Bilbo slipped between two wooden shops built out in front of the stone shops behind them, the odd alleyway barely three Hobbits wide. It was there he caught sight of the sliver of a doorway cut into the stone, a black maw that turned out to be a steep flight of stairs going down, down, down. It also happened to be the place the delicious scent of bread was coming from. He gave himself a pleased pat to the back, borrowed one of the Dwarves' strange glowing crystals off the wall, and stepped into the stairwell.

Bilbo hadn't explored much past the market and the housing since his arrival with the Ri brothers. And while he had been down to one or two of the lower levels of the Halls in his past life, his companions hadn't taken him this way, and Bilbo couldn't recall where this tunnel might lead. His nose told him he was heading toward a kitchen, and his memory told him he should be heading toward the Halls' _main_ kitchens, the ones that supplied the Halls' common meals.

Why Bilbo hadn't thought of it before, he couldn't guess. It was such an obvious solution, he could kick himself for his thick-headedness. He could be so useful in the kitchens.

He only had to hope they needed extra hands.

Bilbo trailed his fingers against the dark stone as he followed the narrow, twisting stair ever downward, the rich scent of baking bread growing like a physical presence around him until the stairs stopped abruptly, ending in an antechamber with a wide hall leading off at one end, and vast double doors thrown open at the other, the light of the kitchens flooding out like a warm welcome home. Bilbo sighed, tension dropping out of his shoulders he hadn't known existed, and stepped eagerly toward the door.

Whatever was to come, he would meet it head on, and gladly.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay--though happily a shorter one than last time! Things have been crazy, but I wanted to post this in the month of my birthday, and we're already halfway through November! A small Hobbity gift for all of you, because all of you are awesome and wonderful, truly.
> 
> I'm hoping to have the next chapter out before December, so everyone cross your fingers along with me. :)

The kitchens were, in a word, chaotic.

Busy.

Familiar.

Comfortable.

Bilbo doubted a Hobbit could ever feel out of place in a proper kitchen, and this was. That is to say, proper. It was a proper, well appointed, well-stocked kitchen.

Half a dozen Dwarves bustled to and fro between thick, scarred butcher blocks and stoves, ovens and countertops, shelves of goods and racks of spices. Dried herbs and cured meat hung from the ceiling. Bilbo spied a rope of garlic cloves that fell nearly to the ground, and beside it hung a string of sausages, and up against the ceiling hung a cluster of cured fish, so far up that he wasn't sure how anyone reached them. It was all rather reminiscent of Bilbo's own larder, if his pantries had been ten times their size.

The bread Bilbo's nose had followed lay in long rows along the furthest block, four loaves deep and a dozen wide. The nearest steamed gently, as if just brought from the oven. They smelled of, well, of bread: a darker, slightly sweet-smelling flour, crusted with seeds. But Bilbo could see the previous batches, all of a different make: rye, perhaps one with cheese if the near-burnt crust was anything to go by, and what looked like a thickly herbed bread—that one Bilbo remembered from Dwalin, who'd had a surprisingly deft hand at campfire bread-making. Bilbo's mouth watered.

"Oi!" a voice sounded sharply across the room, and Bilbo instinctively turned toward it.

"What do you think you're doing in my kitchens?" A Dwarrowdam was staring at him, pinning him to the spot with a cross gleam in her eyes, though an impeccably groomed brown beard hid what was no doubt an impressive frown. She lifted the spoon she was stirring a pot of something with, pointing it toward him threateningly. A bright row of various cookery utensils hung from the thick leather belt about her waist, not unlike the great ring of keys the mayor of Hobbiton touted around. She looked terribly striking, and Bilbo remembered how fiercely Dwarves threw themselves into battle.

If ever a Hobbit was to understand a battle, it _would_ be one over a kitchen.

He floundered a bit then.

"Well?" She barked.

"Oh, um, that is—" Bilbo patted his pockets, a fidget that was well ingrained into his being. He tugged at the cuffs of his shirt, fiddled with the plain brass links holding them in place. "I. That is. Ahem." Bilbo saw what little patience there was slowly evaporating from the Dwarrowdam's stance. He scolded himself and forced his spine straight. He'd dealt with Dwarves moodier than she, and he did have a purpose here, didn't he?

"I'm looking for a job," he said, voice firm, stance determined.

The Dwarrowdam's annoyed expression cleared at once into understanding. "We're full up. Rare to find an open position down here, so you oughn't trouble yourself."

She must have seen Bilbo's disappointment plain on his face. Or something worse, perhaps, for Bilbo felt truly out of sorts, at loose ends so frayed he wasn't sure he'd ever pull them together again. She gave him another sharp look—Bilbo would guess she was full of them—turned a quick eye on her pot, and gave a rapid, unintelligible order to another Dwarf Bilbo had not even seen in the shadows near the stoves.

The second Dwarf—a young lad, if Bilbo were to guess, with a beard only a few inches past his chin, and that particularly gangly look all young lads get right before they hit their growth into adulthood—bustled over to the pot. Several pots, Bilbo realized, and he eyed the odd construction of the stove with some interest.

The Dwarf took up the Dwarrowdam's spoon and place at the stove like a sentinel taking up a sacred duty. Bilbo liked him on the spot. For that matter, he liked the Dwarrowdam as well, if she ran the kitchen with such a firm hand. Kitchens needed looking after: and Bilbo had no doubt she was the one in charge, given her manner. (His father was like that too. Practically bossy in the kitchen, moving about with a thain's purpose, perfectly orderly in his own mind but raining down chaos on everyone else, never mind that he was comfortably mild-mannered and self-contained everywhere else.)

The Dwarrowdam peeled herself away from the stove, walking toward Bilbo with purpose. Bilbo held firmly to his determination—a spine of mithril, Thorin had oft described Bilbo's expression in the last weeks before they reached Erebor. Bilbo held his ground, refusing to retreat from the charge no matter how much she looked like a warrior heading into what promised to be no more than a brief kerfuffle.

"You look like you could use a cuppa," she said when Bilbo made a questioning—not at all distressed—noise.

Bilbo relaxed immediately, and followed her faithfully as she marched to a large butcher's block with half a dozen stools haphazardly pulled around it. An unspoken Hobbit's rule: when someone offered you tea, you went. Silly to pass it up when it came right down to it.

The table was littered with the remnants of chopped herbs and fruit, the crumbs of devoured morning pastry, empty mugs, and at least three iron teapots. Bilbo could just picture a dozen cooks surrounding the table, scarfing down their own breakfasts amidst jokes and gossip even as they prepared meals for the rest of the mountain.

The Dwarrowdam was eyeing him speculatively. She tilted her head toward one teapot in particular. "You like coffee?"

Bilbo blinked his surprise. "Isn't that a pricy import?" He couldn't imagine being given what had to be a delicacy in Ered Luin: not when he was a Hobbit, and a stranger, and not a particularly wealthy one as far as anyone here was concerned.

The Shire did not import coffee—it was expensive, made a too-strong, too-bitter drink, and no one ever figured a use for it. They much preferred the tea they grew themselves. And as far as Bilbo remembered, only the realms further east bothered dealing in it. It would be near impossible to get in the Blue Mountains, or so he'd thought.

But Bilbo did drink it. His Dwarves had ever been a bad influence on him.

The Dwarrowdam's beard twitched, and she was undeniably smiling, amused. "Tis. Difficult to come by indeed, but occasionally one of our number has a cousin who has a brother who was along on a trade caravan that had beans. Is that a yea or nay then, Master..?"

"Gracious!" Bilbo straightened, chagrined and scolding himself. "Where are my manners?" He bowed politely. "Bilbo Baggins, at your service."

The Dwarrowdam's beard twitched in further amusement. "My manners aren't the best, but aye. Madra, daughter of Feldar, at yours." She bowed in return before setting a hand on the pot. "I've heard tell you've got a fair bit of mettle to you, so you'll like this, mark my words. You'll give it a try." It wasn't a suggestion, and she was already bustling around for a clean mug.

Bilbo's head was spinning, and he could only nod acceptance at her words. Madra. Now that was a familiar name indeed. Bilbo should have recognized her at once! But he'd never seen her before, so why would he have? His gaze dropped at once toward her belt of cooking tools, seeking the familiar curve—

And there it was.

Bombur's battle ladle.

Bilbo's gaze traced the familiar lines of it, from handle to the deep, wide bowl.

Madra was Bombur's wife then, the head cook of Ered Luin. He'd told Bilbo, when Bilbo had once worked up the nerve to ask during those early days of the quest—when Bombur, Bofur, and Ori were more or less his only conversational partners—why Bombur had a _ladle_ for a weapon of all things. Bombur's wife had given him the ladle, he'd said: her lucky spoon that always struck true.

"Some take cream or honey in, to soften the bite," Madra said, setting the mug before him and pouring the still hot liquid from the pot. Then she caught his dazed expression, her frown returning at once. "Master Bilbo?"

Bilbo startled a little, and shook his daze away with what felt like the tenth stern word to himself in the last five minutes. "Just Bilbo, Master Madra. I'm just a plain, simple Hobbit. And plain coffee sounds just the thing, thank you."

Madra regarded Bilbo with a thoughtful look, but didn't remark on his words. He could guess what she was thinking: _more an odd Hobbit than a plain one, no doubt. What a peculiarly thing. But a polite curiosity at least!_

Bombur had always said, after all, that his wife was unfailingly observant. She never missed her mark when she set her aim. Bilbo bit back a sigh, fleetingly wondering if he would always be matching his tongue against the minds of too-clever Dwarves, before instead turning his attention to the unexpected pleasure before him.

The coffee was dark and muddy, like the creek behind Bag End when the rain stirred up the muck at the bottom. It'd no doubt been brewed with a heavy hand, as most Dwarves—not Dori, however!—insisted it ought to be. It smelled rich and heavy, both foreign and familiar at once, much like Dwarves to Bilbo's sensibility. And much like Dwarves, he found he'd missed it quite a lot. Perhaps more than he'd expected.

He lifted the cup to his mouth and breathed in a moment, humming his pleasure. Madra nodded in satisfaction, though whether she was pleased Bilbo appreciated the rare drink or that she'd been right about his tastes, he did not know.

Bilbo looked around after Madra hustled him onto a stool with his coffee and a few slices of bread and cheese with an insistence that brooked no argument. The kitchens had been fairly quiet before, a lull Bilbo was starting to suspect was not the norm, with only a handful of staff moving around tending to various countertops, stovetops, and dishes. Now, however, more and more were trickling back in, bustling over to various projects to continue their work.

Madra herself had cleared off the tabletop before collecting chilled dough from some icebox Bilbo did not spy, and was now rolling it out.

"It's busier than I expected, given how quiet it is upstairs," he noted, while firmly squashing the instinct to offer help. He'd already offered when she'd first appeared with the dough, and it was clear the kitchen ran like some well oiled contraption. No, after seeing the kitchen in action, he had no doubt whatsoever that they needed no aid from him.

Madra's eyebrows arched up, dark eyes glittering in mirth. "Well so, you've been around long enough to know our numbers, hmm?"

Heat warmed his cheeks. "Point taken I suppose."

"You're not wrong anyway." Madra smirked when Bilbo threw her an aggravated huff. "There's enough of us to be getting on with, those whose work doesn't take them from the Halls, students, children, our peskier lords. The mountain won't truly start filling again until autumn nears its end, not long before winter makes its first true grumbling noises in the passes."

Bilbo smiled at the 'peskier lords,' though it brought him to wondering how the Halls were run. There were lords and the guilds to contend with, but Thorin's word was the last—that was all Bilbo knew for certain. Not like Hobbiton, where everyone put up a fuss, complained loudly to the mayor, and didn't remotely expect him to fix anything. Nor like the Shire on a whole, where each Farthing had a prominent figure who managed day-to-day affairs, and every influential family had a patriarch or matriarch, and the few dozen officials, and everyone came together at regular meetings to moan and gossip and generally make it their goal to get nothing done.

There were the Master of Buckland and the Thain, of course, but unless they were dealing with Buckland or Tookland, or unless there was a Shire-wide crisis, well. Their voices were two of many, and heard only occasionally above the others more often than not.

Bilbo did not miss those meetings, representing the Baggins family. Being the patriarch wasn't the least reason he'd retired to Rivendell in the end. He'd not been lying when he'd told Gandalf he needed a change.

"You look a pinch ill," Madra said, stilling in her work as she rolled out paper-thin dough.

"Pesky lords," Bilbo said in way of explanation before taking a gulp of coffee. "I'd quite forgotten the autumn meetings in the Shire are coming along." Bilbo looked to Madra, unable to keep the feeling from his voice. "Tedious affairs, you know, where everyone bickers until the sun sets, and if any old affairs manage to get settled, there are sure to be a dozen new ones by evening's end. Dreadful, just dreadful."

Madra laughed. "That's lords the world over. Always a useless lot. Why King Thorin puts up with his, I don't know."

"Surely the guilds are all right," Bilbo said.

Madra snorted. "They would say so." She eyed him. "Living with Master Dori of the Clothmakers Guild, aren't you?"

The only surprise Bilbo showed was a startled blink, a pause a second too long. "I am," he acknowledged. He should have known she would know who he is, where he lived, what he was doing, and on and on. The Halls were as tightly knit as any Shire town, and Dwarves were almost as big a set of gossips as Hobbits.

"Master Dori could tell you a tale or two about the head of the guild, no doubt. He's skilled enough I believe he collaborates on the guild agenda. I know I could tell stories about my own." She gave him a knowledgeable look. "Trying to manage a single guild is akin to arguing with half a dozen lords of the same house at once, except they claim to be working together while each wants something different. Throw a dozen guilds into it and it's no wonder the guild masters' meetings always dissolve into a melee before the day's through."

"A melee?" Bilbo stared, his mug halfway to his mouth.

Madra nodded. "Vertik of the glassworking guild received a pot to the head last spring after spouting overblown nonsense about his budget for half an hour in an attempt to siphon other guilds' funds."

"A… pot," Bilbo said, glancing around the kitchen.

Madra had a terrifyingly satisfied smile, teeth bright amidst her beard. "He deserved the headache, mark my word."

"Ah," Bilbo said. After awhile he offered, "I've found a stout iron frying pan works best. If you get them just right, you can take out their knees before knocking them out a good few hours."

Madra gave a short bark of laughter. "What in the world did you get mixed up in?"

"Oh, you know." He waved vaguely around. At her prompting look, another faint flush crept over his cheeks. "Well, it _was_ an accident," he defended. "I was travelling, my friend and I, and we'd set camp for the night. My companion had wandered off again—something he's fond of doing—and a Man came out of the brush from nowhere and quite startled me. My pan was the nearest thing at hand, as I was about to put dinner on. Perhaps he was lucky I hadn't started cooking yet."

Madra laughed outright at that. "You speak like he was a friend: who did you pan over the head?"

"A, ah, well." Bilbo cleared his throat. He was certainly blushing now. "A Ranger. He was out searching for us as it happens."

Madra laughed harder.

"It was some time ago," Bilbo said.

Madra's dark eyes gleamed, voice still full of mirth. "I believe I like you, Master Bilbo. Come by the kitchen anytime for a chat."

"Please, it's just Bilbo," he said, and was promptly ignored.

"Perhaps you'll be staying to see the winter?" Madra suggested. "You don't sound keen on returning to your Shire."

"Only if I can find enough work," Bilbo admitted, glad for the change of subject. "It's a pity you don't need help around here. I'm a fine cook, if I say so myself." Bilbo looked around the kitchen again, still intently interested in learning every corner of it even if he would not be cooking in it.

"Indeed so?" Madra said. "In that case we will have to collaborate on some dishes. Cooks are not made to be outside the kitchen for long." She hummed thoughtfully as Bilbo gaped.

"Thank you. Only if it wouldn't cause chaos, of course. A kitchen such as this hardly needs—" he began, but she cut him off with a quick, sharp hand motion that likely meant something in Iglishmêk, something more than the universal 'stop blathering, you silly fool'.

"Have you any skill with herbs?" she asked. At Bilbo's surprised nod, she continued, "I suggest you try for work in the Halls' apothecary. The private shops tend to steal away the best trained apprentices with bribes, and the head of the ward is always looking for skilled hands.

Madra gave him an appraising look-over. "Bothered by blood? Injury? Apprentices in the apothecary are pulled into double duty in the healers ward. You'll be faced with doling out doses and salves to recalcitrant patients, bandaging wounds, interacting with the ill."

Bilbo shrugged. "I can't say it's pleasant work, but it wouldn't be my first time helping bandage people back up."

There were days after the Battle of the Five Armies where Bilbo could do nothing but exhaust himself under Óin's and Dáin's healers' harried direction. So many had died, and so many more had been wounded, and for Bilbo's part his own losses had left him unable to cope with nothing to do. It'd been the healer wards or sitting, invisible, amid the hubbub of three recovering kingdoms, so he'd changed bandages. He'd ground and blended together pastes and tinctures, boiled cloth, made and served the thin, nutritious broth Óin dictated out as best for those in need of healing. He'd done everything he could to avoid thinking—feeling, in all honesty.

Bilbo could still hear Óin's distance voice muttering about fools overworking themselves, a not-so-subtle and not-so-sotto remark on Bilbo's behavior. He could still remember working himself into a stupor, too, until he stumbled from his work to the nearest piece of empty wall to fall into troubled dreams he had thankfully not remembered on waking. He could still feel a heavy, calloused, too-warm hand on his shoulder, painfully reminiscent of another Dwarf's hand, and the way someone would scoop him up and carry him to a proper cot—Dwalin, mostly, and Bifur or Bofur sometimes.

Bilbo smiled at Madra, and if it was bleak she did not remark upon it. "Thank you for the recommendation. I believe I'll do just that."

Madra nodded, and Bilbo thought he saw curiosity in her face, but she did not press about his experience.

"The master healer is named Óin, son of Gróin," Madra said. It was all Bilbo could do not to start at the name, but she was already carrying onward. "He is always in the ward in the mornings, but he often attends other matters after the second noon bell. You have time to catch him yet today, if you hurry."

Bilbo nodded in agreement, for it was a good suggestion. But he couldn't help saying with a wry smile, "Trying to get rid of me already?"

Madra's eyebrow arched, bushy and dark and unimpressed. "I expect you back to discuss possible dishes to prepare. A taste of the Shire, I should think. We can see about the differences in our cultural dishes."

Bilbo laughed. "Duly noted, Master Madra."

"If not today, then sometime before the week's end," she said sternly. "I am here most mornings, and if you miss me, one of my students will take a message. Now go. The second bell is fast approaching, and Óin is less patient than I am."

Bilbo rubbed a hand over his mouth to stop his grin. "Was that patience when we met?"

Madra's look was amused disdain. "You were fortunate."

Bilbo didn't bother hiding his grin anymore. He finished the last dredges of his coffee as Madra gave him brusque directions to the healers ward. He bowed to her once more when he stood.

"Thank you for your help, Master Madra. I look forward to our next meeting."

Madra waved him off with a short, amused snort. "I shall enjoy seeing how you fit into the mountain, Master Bilbo."

Bilbo took his leave, climbing the stairs—and goodness, were there ever so many stairs about a mountain!—aiming for the healers' ward.

He might find work.

He might find Óin.


End file.
